I am a retired nurse educator who taught at the community college, baccalaureate and graduate levels. Community college lift people out of poverty. When I taught in the community college, 20-25% of my students were male. At the BSN level it was less than 5%. We need more men in health care. And patients need to stop assuming that male nurses and orderlies ate doctors.
Yes, agreed. But they can't come in all toxic roid rage. They will have to be taught gentleness, diplomacy, and emotional intelligence skills because when you are recovering from illness or surgery gruff masculinity is the last thing a male or female nor elderly patient wants.
I actually am encouraged by the surge of male nurses and Physicians Assistants I have run across lately in the hospitals and at my GP, and they have proven to be no less caring than the women. I do believe the mocking of men who do 'women's jobs' is dropping away. For a simple fact: nobody can afford it anymore.
I wish Paul Krugman would dive into the data and help explain why the prime age male workforce participation rate begins to decline in the 1950s, BEFORE the Civil Rights Act and second wave feminism (i.e. the first graph in this newsletter). Something started to happen in the 1950s and accelerated in subsequent decades. Identifying what that is would result in a better diagnosis and prescription. Considering the data shown in that graph, the MAGA idea of returning to the 1950s wouldn’t address whatever caused prime working age men to start dropping out of the workforce during a period commonly regarded as the golden age of white male workers.
I suspect the return from the war may have something to do with it. Women worked during the war, they didn't like being told to stay home and that will also affect ratios.
Alliance-building as a national security priority was one reason, but I suspect the biggest factor was technology (which accelerated in the 1990s, but the effects of which date back to WWII). As an anecdotal example (Paul can provide real data to prove or disprove), read Kurt Vonnegut's novel Player Piano (1952), which is mostly about men losing their identity as creators to technology and uncaring corporations. Sound familiar?
Good point. Women weren’t ‘weighed down’ by thinking of themselves as ‘creators.’ My mom took a job as a lowly machine operator. She jut wanted to feed our family.
It looks like the 1990s showed a sharp increase in manufacturing unemployment. That was around the time Clinton signed NAFTA into law. Also the GATS treaty, (not GATT), which was a giveaway to international corporations.
Remember that automation (the primary driver of the loss of manufacturing jobs) also kicked into high gear about that time. Another point to consider is that the price for manufactured products has to include all the input costs—materials and labor. Moving low skill manufacturing jobs to countries with lower labor costs had the net effect of making those goods cheaper for consumers—which raised living standards for millions of people.
Our real sin was not using the social safety net to support the displaced workers and retrain them for other occupations where they could support themselves and their families.
Men came back and took advantage of GI bill educational opportunities. My father was at university during some of those years because US government paid for his education. Men were attending college in high numbers.
That’s related to one of my thoughts, along with the others that people have mentioned. I first noticed the decline started earlier than reported in the media while my state was going through another intense bout of rural vs urban drama 20+ years ago. I started exploring databases. Besides the BLS data used in Krugman’s graph, the US Department of Agriculture kept more detailed data and our land grant university had its own database. I could see rural income shifted from primarily wages pre-1969 to mostly transfer payments (e.g Social Security, agricultural subsidies, unemployment insurance) and rents and lease income. A lot of the land here was given to returning GIs after WW2, so they may have shifted from being wage earners to rentiers. Unemployment insurance here has been used by employers to keep reliable seasonal workers during the winter, which means men are often unemployed and not really looking during the off season. So, it could be white men found different income streams after WW2 that didn’t require them to work full time year round. But exploring it further is beyond my bandwidth so Krugman could have one of his graduate students dig into the possibility.
I'm not sure what is the cause of decline was in the 1950s through 1980s. But, I'm wondering if the drug addiction crisis associated with oxycontin use starting in the 1990s has been a contributing factor in male job participation.
Could building up a bigger military during that Cold War era have something to do with it? Potential civilian workers either conscripted or willfully joining up?
I’m having a hard time with the concept of raising wages in healthcare, social work, and education to benefit men. They should be well paying jobs because they are vital to a free and productive society but they aren’t well paid because they are “female coded” and women’s work is not as valuable as men’s. This sexism is nauseating to me.
At the same time it makes sense because these jobs need the people to work them. If we can coddle men into jobs that matter by actually paying the wages the jobs deserve I guess we should do it. But it’s hard to imagine wanting a MAGA asshole teaching my kid or helping my mom in the hospital after surgery. How do we incorporate these men into the caring professions without completely eliminating the caring? It’s probably gonna take more than just raising the pay.
When I read the comment about raising wages to benefit men, steam started pouring out of my ears. The plight of women, Blacks, Indigenous, and other people of color has been going on since the founding of this nation, but we're still mainly caring about the plight of (white) men.
Yes! The real issue is that we've let their resentment mutate into MAGA. Many policies discussed here about education and family policies may have gone a long way to prevent this, but Democrats were effectively shut down in favour of "triangulation" policies.
In the IT Industry where I worked for a long time, I noticed how 'men's jobs' that were lucrative and then slowly filled up with more women, since the women worked hard on graduating with the right degrees (example: UX/UI), suddenly flipped and became so much less lucrative.
The oppositive of gentrification, I guess you could call it genderfication.
Bottom line, we need to start mocking the whole idea there are jobs only men can do or only women can do (the latter, naturally, less well paying and typically in support of the man's job). It's a job. It pays a salary you need.
Again, I just don't think even the men can continue to afford this, especially now. Women can afford it less than men because they get less money and buffer for the hard times--but in the end, men can't afford this either. And as for them being less caring, I haven't seen that yet. That MAGA guy you imagine wouldn't last long in the job, would get fired in a hurry.
Hell, the country can't afford this. It's a luxury to pretend men need to receive special treatment like this. We're up against China, let's use good old fashioned common sense. We need both genders working to their fullest potential.
Yes. I remember discussions in the field of psychology in the 1970's and early 80's, that too many women therapists would decrease both our status and wages. I believe that's what happened to physicians in the Soviet Union when the majority shifted to women.
The women in these jobs deserve higher wages. When young men see what they can earn in these jobs their tune will change. Also, you have to meet criteria for working in caring professions. Being good with people and empathetic is key. This is something young men could aspire to. We need a cultural shift.
But most of these jobs have become "second income" jobs appealing to women who may want to work part time or for less money to devote some time to family. This makes them taboo to men. And it has never really caught on for men to be full time homemakers.
Nurse, nurse practitioner, daycare worker, early childhood education specialist, personal care worker, dental hygienist, physiotherapist, executive assistant, administration assistant, bookkeeper, etc etc etc. These are not part time jobs. Men could do this. Women make careers out of this valuable work. Parents and kids need to have top notch daycare during working hours until the kids are full time at school. Good public schools. Family support workers can help fill in the gaps. This is how many Scandinavian countries operate and they get 4 weeks of paid holidays a year. What is nit to like?
Everyone on those jobs deserve higher wages. Heat care corporations are making millions and eating up the smaller competitors. The profits are nor trickling down to workers or patient care.
Like with all jobs, some people just aren't a good fit. If some MAGA type with a grudge and poor bedside manner tries to become a nurse, the chances they remain employed or even hired in the first place will be pretty low. But if you make these positions more appealing on a fundamental level, eventually qualified candidates will emerge from other career fields where perhaps they weren't doing so well. You get a general reordering of the work force.
Yes, we need to incorporate these men into professions, but it doesn't necessarily mean the caring professions.
I completely agree with your point that jobs need to be valued for their inherent worth, freed from with whom they were historically associated. At 71, I remember when newspaper job listings were separated into “help wanted - male” and “help wanted - female”. The feminist movements of the 1970s were instrumental in breaking this down, but it’s an ongoing process. Krugman isn’t advocating for jobs to be gender coded, just the opposite. However, the existing gender coding pays workers less when a job historically was associated with women. Years ago I remember reading that whereas women once earned $0.73 for every $1.00 a man earned, that had risen to $0.75! The point of the article was that’s NOT progress. Breaking down the gender code for healthcare jobs should raise living standards for women working in those fields. It may mean getting in through the back door, but if it gets women higher wages I’m all for it.
As an aside, to understand how strong the gender coding once was, listen to this working session by the comedy team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May (look them up if you aren’t familiar with them). The entire joke of this skit is that a man tells his mother he wants to be a registered nurse. They can’t make it through the skit because the very idea of that is hysterically funny!
Yeah, insure that maga men know that people who are ill are more important than when their AR14 malfunctions. You do that and they will care about the humans who are suffering. Someone's convinced them that the government is out to get them, so they get the guns. Who is that someone?
I agree, Galen but I can’t help thinking that young men feel resentment that they no longer rule the roost. Women are no longer subservient to them because of their economic power over us. Women can take care of themselves now. More women are going to college, more women are breaking into “male” designated jobs. Watch ADOLESCENCE. These young boys are listening to Nick Fuentes & the Tate Brothers & yes, Charlie Kirk who preach women should obey their husbands. What does that sound like to you? Huge resentment against women & their successes. What a shame! What a lost opportunity. Women love their men & their little boys. They got jobs to help afford homes they both dreamed of. Instead of merging the marriage structure to an equal, loving partnership, they resented lifting up women to equal themselves. In order for men to feel good about themselves, they needed women to need them, obey them, & be subservient to them. So sad!
What we are leaving out is the cultural shift. It is seismic in that the internet stokes the fear boys & young men feel. IMHO they truly feel they are dispensable. Women do not really need them economically anymore. Heck, we don’t really need them to procreate. I’m a 78 year old woman & my heart aches for my 16 year old grandson who feels alienated, alone & adrift. He has no friends much less a girlfriend.
When men become afraid, they become angry, which in turn turns into rage and explodes into violence. Watch “Adolescence” which portrays part of the problem young males have with young teen (13-14) girls. (It won an Emmy-just so good!) It seems to me, boys & young men did not adapt to the changing times. Women did. We as parents, educators, politicians, & faith leaders didn’t either. Trade schools died on the vine. Think of all the jobs connected to AI, green tech, internet tech, bio-bots, etc. & we have not sent our boys there because we are governed by the climate change deniers & drill-baby-drill crowd. To say Democrats should step up is ludicrous. We’ve been blocked every step of the way.
It’s complicated. Men have to feel like they are needed. They want to take care of their families-they’ve been fed that narrative since Adam & Eve were expelled from paradise. The first step is recognizing we have a huge problem. More guns, taking rights away from women & “others”, consolidating wealth in the hands of the few will never solve it. We have to work together. If only men would view woman as partners & not competitors. That would be a step in the right direction.
I agree the cultural side of this issue is missing, and that it starts much earlier in life. Some time ago, I read a study that about a quarter of 4th graders felt pressure not to be perceived as smart by peers. By 9th grade, the sentiment was expressed by more than half of the students.
Getting 14 year old boys to be willing to shine academically and to lay groundwork for caring professions is a heavy lift. It will also be necessary.
Of course the cultural side is missing, as most feminists do a very poor job applying feminism to men, as it requires accepting they also also victims of bad culture and social conditioning. This is understandable as, obviously, women are focused on women's issues not men's and this colors their views of feminism considerably, people are naturally biased toward their own. This is despite intersectional feminism on paper taking this into account - its not hard to find well read feminists saying the same thing I am saying, but most feminists identify as such in a very loose, non intellectual mostly tribal way and have little in common with well read people.
This is all worsened by the fact there is barely any male liberation movement on the left from men, and most of it is just men adopting common feminist view points without any understanding of it. In other words: no male equivalent of feminism really exists. Something that is becoming much more pronounced of an issue after decades of women rejecting garbage culture that impacted how they viewed themselves and their world. Meanwhile men are mostly where they were at 50 years ago culturally.
Hell if you want a quick way to measure if someone is even serious here, ask them if the body modification of male children's genitals (aka no consent) for cultural, non medical reasons (US circumcision) is misandrist or institutionally sexist. They will do everything possible to argue its totally not, because many people have a dogmatic belief that men by definition literally physically cannot be victims of sexism in the way women are. People like this, which seems to be the majority of the left at this point, are not capable of a productive conversation on why young men struggle so much in school. Nor do they generally care to.
Its hard to not notice what is happening: Instead of looking at how boys are taught and socialized and the effects this has down stream, and how we treat them culturally we look at mens internal locus of control and decision making in a vacuum. We assume the institiutional status quo is just. There is also zero discussion whatsoever of anything practical we could do to improve their prospects, as actively helping young men specifically, unlike other groups, is automatically rejected as not fitting into a narrow ideological box.
I can only imagine all it takes for a right winger moron to believe strongly they are on the right side in the endless culture war is to read any left leaning comment section on men, including this one.
Invariably its the same: men are doing worse, and we are just going to assume this is bio essentialist and thus justified so that we can feel better not providing any sympathy or having any self criticism on how we treat them ourselves (especially how parents raise boys)
Women evolved because we had to. We grew resilience inside of ourselves personally and collectively. Men did not have to evolve because they have been on top for centuries, broadly across societies. They didn't need the same level of resilience as we developed then, but now that men have lost so much because of end-stage Capitalism (which is actually what is really to blame for their problems at core and not women's progress), we are seeing what not having enough resilience looks like in the toxic MAGA resentment ethic and fallout.
Maybe this is the start; perhaps men will begin to evolve their mindset and ideas. Maybe there is an endgame where we have parity and equality someday because we've been able as a species to evolve past Capitalism and Patriarchy. But, I will tell you this, I'm not going back, and neither are most of the women I personally know and follow. I will fight to the death before I see my daughter turned into someone's handmaid. So, men will either have to evolve or kill us. Then it won't matter because humanity will be done. And if they/we let it come to that, it would probably be for the best anyway.
You're assuming the solution here is 'men need to try harder' when most likely the cause and solution is cultural and begins with how parents raise (or in practice, don't raise) boys. Like this is just pro status quo.
You need to apply feminism to men if you want to get anywhere but this first requires acknowledging they also have social and cultural pressures that massively impact how they think and view the world. Women adopted feminism and were able to reject nonsense through it, men should do the same.
Then raise your sons exactly how you raise your daughters. Parents won’t, though, they will continue to put boys in the same strict gendered box they always have because they are terrified of raising weak, feminized men. So these boys will continue to not be fully human because so much has been cut out emotionally from them. And the fallout from all this is men & women not liking each other, the gender war, not enough babies being born, and all that comes from that. Society could fix all this if it changed how it raises boys. But it won’t.
You should read two x chromosomes if you want to see how bad the divide has gotten. You can read just straight open misandry now. It wasn't nearly that bad a year ago. So this is even on one side anymore. Social media algorithms and companies who profit off of it, is just making this work like everything else.
The way to raise wages in any industry is unions. Managements will pay the lowest wages they can get away with. It will take some sort of organized employee activity to get their attention. That includes a willingness to strike if necessary.
I and some of my family members have had recent hospital stays and I have also been amazed at the number of male nurses there are compared to the past. Somehow the message is getting through
Krugman has it wrong. Middle-class and poor men are being exploited by right-wing brainwashing pushed by elite wealthy con men.
If Krugman was right, we'd see a lot less concentration of wealth controlled by men. But what we can all clearly see is a extreme concentration of wealth held by a handful of men who are using that wealth to push a false narrative and attack the greatest threat to their power, a democracy that taxes and regulates them. It's much easier to blame liberal democracy for the downfall of your average Joe than the wealth gap especially when these elite oligarchs control our mass media and the narrative. And, unfortunately, worshipping wealth and power is the American way.
So, Krugman is wrong here, the wealth gap is the issue controlled by a handful of con men and nothing will change until that wealth gap is addressed and limited/capped. Unfortunately, the wealth gap is growing even larger every day and our system has already been corrupted.
The reality is, the Democrats have zero chance of fixing this problem, it will literally take a revolution at this point and likely over two or three generations - we're talking over a 100 years before humanity even has a chance to get out of this one, that's how entrenched this problem is.
You and Krugman are both right. But Krugman is pointing to a way out - Democrats need to ACT. Democratic states have a lot of power and need to show the way. Get on board. Young men need a place in this world - start giving them one.
I've always been on board and at no point have I ever felt threatened by having to compete with women, minorities or immigrants in the workforce, in fact the opposite, I embrace it because it grows the economy and creates more opportunity. Some of us are not afraid of equality and never were. What is intolerable to me are those conned by the rich elite men who want to blame taking wealth out of the system from everyone else on the very liberal democracy that gave them that wealth in the first place. It's a sickness.
I worked in a male dominated workplace for 10 years. Technological advancements evolved that workplace into an 50/50 gender ratio for the last twenty years. It was a really nice workplace.
The men themselves need to get on board the train - do better in HS, get advanced skills, either in a trade school type program, or community college. It's like a buffet, you got to help yourself.
The HEAL jobs mentioned are likely less under threat from loss to AI. The same as plumbing, etc., which require diagnosis of the problem and physical work.
I am male, have a Ph.D. (+ postdoc), got paid way too much and I am skeptical about this notion. Advancement in the labor market is relative. If we all have Ph.D.’s, then we are all working at $7.50 / hr. because employers are spoiled for choice.
I’m not looking to preserve my privilege here. I’m retired. I just think the problem in the labor marketplace is actually lack of labor negotiating power, rather than lack of education. You can learn most things on the job. I never took a programming class in my life, but did well at software for a career for a FAANG for 21 years. When we demand ever more education, all we do is increase the cost in years and $$ of producing a worker, and turn the screws ever tighter on women trying to balance work vs. family by sacrificing their youth to keep up with the guys. Mostly what we do is blame the victim for the hostile labor marketplace that does not pay employees what they are worth.
It helps if there is a nearby public community college. Where I live, the nearest public one is over an hour's drive. While there is a church-run one that is closer, it is more expensive.
There were studies in my teaching years until 2010, that showed teachers called on boys more often than girls. I caught myself doing that. My students came from many immigrant backgrounds, with some white kids. I can’t comment on differential treatment of non-whites, who were the majority in my classes.
But I have known more boys than girls who absolutely loathed school, because it was not geared to them as individuals.
It seems a significant portion of young men have eschewed education and retreated from real life into the fantasy world of online gaming. If allowed, they hang out in their mother’s basements playing video games. In the video games they can imagine themselves as a conquering hero that vanquishes evil villains and monsters, winning the heart of a voluptuous princess or some other great prize. So of course they are disappointed when in real life women have no interest in them.
Reality has no chance when competing with such addictive fantasy. Until we as a society address this problem, everything else will be nibbling around the edges.
They don’t just need to act, they need to become progressive. The problem is that the Democratic Party leadership can no more hold its nose long enough to actually help these guys than the Republicans can.
And as a now-old woman who succeeded in a male-dominated field (software development, 1983-2017, in projects ranging from safety analysis of nuclear power plants to cancer research), it pisses me off that Krugman's suggestion to help the angry young men is to *offer to pay them more* so that they will consider working in fields that are presently filled by women. Pay the women more!
I know that was what he meant. My point was that women have been fighting for pay equity my entire life. The only way women can get anything close to equal pay is to be entrepreneurial (at least, that's what it took for me). I just had this knee-jerk reaction to Krugman's catalyst for better pay for socially critical jobs like health care and education being a need to coddle young men.
Young men's (and men's in general) angst and frustration is always to be taken seriously. Fewer and fewer men going to college generates lots of handwriting; if it was women, the media would just write it off as "girls, what can you do."
And give fathers paid paternity leave too (I know-some men rather go to work, than cater to the mom and baby, but they are missing out on a great part of family life).
Same low pay for the same work. Make the billionaires like Elon richer! They need to buy more private jets, yachts and mansions. Anything else is communism!
And the point is that MAGA leveraged a 'feeling' of being left out, left behind, discriminated against in this group and used it to their advantage. In short they are busy pulling wool over their eyes, lest they discover that MAGA in fact supports the oligarchy that diminishes their chance at the American Dream.
Isn't "equal pay" what women have been striving for since the 1960's? And the ERA still hasn't been passed....probably won't be until there's someone other than an old white man as president.
The problem isn't Presidential; it's Congress. I read yesterday that Biden tried to get Congress to act on it when the last State ratified it and they refused to do so.
I also had careers in male-dominated fields and was in the first class of women admitted to a previously all-male college. (White) men have been coddled and advantaged since the founding of this country. Meanwhile the plight of women and Blacks and other persons of color are not adequately addressed. Second chair AGAIN.
So called "white male rage" is pretty much men's fury at having lost their hundreds of years of privileged status.
And the same men, the .1%, the CEOligarchs, the wealthy white guys who helped erase "American white male privilege" (for money & power– women and minorities –especially "illegals"– work for lower wages) then turned around and fueled the fury over a situation they helped cause. Once again, for money & power.
These wealthy CEOligarchs funded Kirk's rise to popularity and influence, and were a big factor in his assassination in encouraging this societal fear and hatred of trans-persons, a tiny and not dangerous population.
And now they are exploiting Kirk's death, and in so many ways! Squashing free speech after supporting Kirk's brazen lies is just one. They look to be inciting more violence, maybe even open rebellion or civil war.
We can’t actually solve the problem of under paid workers until we recognize that fighting amongst ourselves doesn’t actually do anything except distract from the fact that workers are underpaid. I fear you are still fighting the last war.
non-white men are suffering too. I'm including them. I said women and Blacks and other persons of color. Not sure why you thought that meant only women. I'm not shaming white men as a group, just acknowledging their position of power and privilege. No doubt It's difficult for them to. experience erosion of that status. I've experienced lots of resentment and attempts to undermine my worth as a result. (Wouldn't have gotten in to Caltech except for being a woman, it's reasonable to pay a colleague more, even though he was junior to me, because he has a family, etc). I want society to be equitable. It's not now.
I've heard your argument before.gg Because I stand up fpr women and other disadvantaged groups, I hate men. You're going to believe what you want to believe. There's no discussion to be had here.
He’s not wrong. He’s written extensively about the damage income inequality has done. But there’s no quick fix for that. It will take a revolution to dislodge the parasitic oligarchs from the nation’s blood stream.
If we want to get these men working, he’s making suggestions for how to do that. The fact that we don’t pay teachers what their worth is also a result of income inequality.
Some blue states like MA and CT do pay teachers much higher salaries because they realize the connection education has to the economy. I’m in a red state where teachers are drastically underpaid and earn little respect. That’s the way the state wants it.
If these men out of the workforce are largely in red states then it’s going to be twice as hard to improve their lives. The state needs to keep them angry because it’s a large part of how they stay in power. That brings us back to the needed revolution in thinking.
Personally, I think it doesn’t require a revolution. We just need to add worker representation to the board room. As my modest fix, I would suggest all of the proxy votes for institutional shareholders that do not allow individuals to vote (index funds, private equity and the like) should be assigned to the employees of the company.
Why should we do this? Management is currently enjoying a rubber stamped blank check from 50-80% of the shareholders who never vote. It makes whatever they want much easier to pass, leading to exploitation and short termism. We can take Musk’s new ridiculous pay package as an example. It isn’t practical for a shareholder of VTI to vote in 5000 different shareholder elections of the 5000 companies that comprise the index fund. Vanguard won’t do it. They are trying to keep expenses down. Nobody else will do it for the same reason. Only employees will do it for free and can be relied upon to really know what is going on at the company.
If employees had a voice at work, a lot of these problems would be cleaned up every quickly, starting, I am sure with the tortured labor markets followed quickly by self dealing senior management.
Wealth inequality is at the root of so many of our problems. This problem with men in particular is merely a subset of that larger problem. Paul's suggestions for fixing the problem with men may be more doable politically than solving wealth inequality but it's just a bandaid. Better than nothing, I suppose, but I like attacking root causes. The time is ripe to be bold. Democrats need to make wealth inequality their signature issue and push it hard. It is a simple universal message. A heavy political lift for sure so let's start lifting. To paraphrase JFK, we do it, not because it is easy, but because it is hard...and therefore worthwhile.
Thomas Piketty, in his book, Capital in the 21st Century, studied the records of many countries' economic outcomes from the time they were first recorded and concluded that if our US wealth inequality continued on the same trajectory as it's been, then we would have a bloody revolution within 30 years. It's gotten much worse. I'm not sure the people in power want to curtail this growth.
Mancur Olson "The Rise and Decline of Nations" is also a very good read about the tendency of "rent seekers" in democracy to eventually turn the country into oligarchies. Really, after Citizens United, what else would anyone expect to have as an outcome?
"I expect that, over time, Trump’s approval among young men will fade as it becomes clear that he is utterly failing to deliver on his promises".
I disagree Dr. Krugman. I expect that over time, Trump's approval among young men will not fade because authorities like Melon Fusk has told them that economic pain will temporarily get worse before it gets better here in Amerika. The young men in our country will be old men by the time the pain finally registers in their psyche and by then, these rubes will be comfortably numb
There's a school of thought that masculinity means being a complete dick to everyone, particularly women. The Felon of the United States is the role model. That will be enough for some men, though hopefully not all.
There is a more moderate school of thought which recognizes that many/most women prefer men who earn more than they do — the male provider expectation/myth.
If we stop for a moment and consider how that expectation plays out against an expectation for pay equality and the presently oversized female college population, using our knowledge of basic statistics, it should not be hard to see that (provided these representations are accurate) most men are going to find themselves deeply disfavored on the dating market. That alone should explain quite a lot of male rage from quite a lot of men. So for every chauvinist you decry, there are, I suggest, dozens more who simply feel society is being unreasonable.
That is, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence, or at least charitably in this case, failing to live in a world where all men are (paid) above average.
Listening to my female friends over the years, I'd say pay is not the driving factor. It may be an adjustment but it's not the absolute dealbreaker it's made out to be.
89.5 million registered voters did not vote in the last election. Why not? I've offered to call 500 people and ask. The head of our Dem party here has taken me up on it but asked to wait until after we vote on prop 50 here in CA. I have very mixed feelings about it, but will be making those calls.
I think Krugman article is an explanation of why Middle-class and poor men are so easily exploited by right-wing brainwashing pushed by elite wealthy con men.
Gender has little to do with it. More men certainly hold more wealth than women, but changing gender won't solve the problem of inequality. The list of far right women is just as long as men. It's about ideology, not gender.
I agree with you. I commented negatively on this article because of the entrenched sexism in it, and the idea that boosting one gender is the solution, when it isn't. Our culture indeed worships wealth and power, both of which have been in the hands of rich men for 2,000 years. This is patriarchy and the irony is that MAGA men embrace it even as its effect is to economically oppress them. "Manly jobs" is one of the most ridiculous terms I've come across yet. A couple of summers ago I did an independent study on misogyny, and Krugman's article, while not reeking of it, gives a few whiffs, especially when he says the Democrats need to "help men." I responded by saying they need to help all people. Otherwise, the disparity will persist.
Well, here you see pretty standard "progressive" anti-male rhetoric. I consider myself a "progressive". (surprise! I;m here, right?) but I've been hearing routine anti-male stereotypes for decades now. This has helped neither males or progressive causes, but it has helped the MAGA world big time.
I'm a white male and you can definitely put me in the category of "anti-male". I know it may be overly simplistic but most of the world's problems have been caused by only one of the two sexes.
And most of the solutions too. The fact is, for most of human history, most of the world's material advancements have been made by men, overwhelmingly so until the late 20th century. There are all kinds of explanations for this, but the idea that women will make the world a better place if only they were in charge remains an untested hypothesis.
And there have been plenty of tough, aggressive women leaders already: Margaret Thatcher, Gold Meir, Indira Gandhi, Hilary Clinton (some say Trump won because he was the "peace and antiwar" candidate in 2016 and maybe 2024 too, compared to the women he was running against both times. Interesting that Trump won both times against women, but lost to a man in the middle (2020)). So it's hard to make the case that "feminine values" or whatever, would be any different if they were in charge, or that countries that are run that way can actually happen or do better in the long run. Angela Merkel - no weak sister herself - let in hordes of Islamic migrants, out of "compassion" partly - and Germany is still reeling over it, and mostly regretting it, even talking about reversing it.
…and, cynic that I am—my excuse: I've met humans—I fully expect them to exhibit behaviour fully as horrible as men's, perhaps a lot of it different such that keeps the 'fresh' in 'What _fresh_ Hell is _this_!?'.
Current exceptions benefit from those women who rise having had to be exceptional.
This is not about men vs women. This is simply about equal opportunity and pay - and the change to use the full range of our population to make the country work to the best of its ability.
Frankly, it is probably more about the historical need for women to attempt to have 6-8 children to balance out against infant mortality and death during childbirth. If you didn’t make that happen, one way or another, your society would wither and die and be replaced by those who did. We inherit those value from our progenitors many generations before not because they were wise or just or right, simply necessary. There does not even need to have been an ethos or culture driving it, since it is enforced in the most simple Darwinian terms. You either did or did not.
Obviously women spending much of their lives bearing and breastfeeding children meant there was not much time for labor outside the home. We don’t need to do that anymore. We are definitely swinging too far in the other direction with births per woman dropping below 2 and in many places below 1 in some western countries. That will have dire economic consequences as societies become over saturated by non working elderly.
Before turning to double and triple down on work, though. It is probably worth gently revisiting the question of why we are working so hard and so long to enrich other people and whether that is even a worthy goal. I feel our collective priorities have become utterly lost and directionless. In many ways, a priority to the family by at least one parent was healthier.
There are more than my partial list, a lot more. But those listed prove that just having a female leader means nothing in terms of how a country is governed. Same for corporations, though there is some evidence that women leaders seek consensus more than men.
Well...from what I can see, at the moment, none of Putin and his entourage are female, nor Netanyahu and his government... or the rebels in Soudan... or North Korea 's heads of State... or closer to home, no female US president ever? And the vast majority of prisoners is still male I believe... for example... so... :) Not being 'anti male' here and I am sure you can find a few counter examples along history. ;)
The assumption that a give group is full of toxic attitudes that need to be policed before members of that group can be admitted. If you said that about (say) Blacks as a group you would quickly and rightly be called out as racist.
Well,there is some reason why the DNC website homepage for a very long time had a big photo of 4 black young women and 1 old white woman on their This is the Democratic Party homepage. They recently changed that to admit some young white males and young white women on a photo. But, hey, diversity is progress.
I've been hearing routine anti-woman stereotypes for just as long yet astonishingly they're not going on shooting sprees or voting for the feminist counterpart of Trump (not that there is one).
The difference is that these men have lost status that they were probably taught they were due. Maybe it’s a Male identity issue as historically Men receive an identity through working. Then we can add in all of the stereotypical “Real Men are X” sexism and gender roles that make some men feel inferior and hopeless that anything can change or that change would mean “not being a man”.
Ever since I was a child I strongly believed that sexism of men through gender expectations was a cage that many men wouldn’t even see, but it was harmful in similar ways to sexism of women through those same gender expectations. A male job or a female job should simply be a job held by a male or female.
Yes, sexism harms us all, a trap for men as surely as women. I can’t imagines the pressure of having to be a protector and provider when technological change and the upper classes makes it nearly impossible.
Yes, exactly. Rates of violence against women are still high and we were the first group to have our rights reduced in this stupid era, followed shortly thereafter by brown people and immigrants, yet much digital ink is spilled discussing the problems of angry white men, the ones shooting people. What lesson does that teach us?
Joe, my sense is that the "roid-rage" males are sucking up all the media attention and yes, they are a source of valid concern. Mavenmaven below has a point about ICE, which seems to be a magnet for angry men. On the other hand, I'd like to think that there are plenty of men who have the sense to know that the world is not going to retrograde and are looking for a way through.
I've read that actually, ICE is attracting many existing police because of the higher salaries. This has created a shortage of deputies in rural communities.
Hi Joe. You’re both right (gentleness, etc) and wrong (if they succeed, they calm down). Community college offers a pathway, not for all, out of the dead-end of ‘no heavy industry’ life. It’s a step, not a solution.
It is a step, thank you, and in my experience they do calm down as they see progression toward their life goals. This usually takes about a year from sometimes angry entry to feeling valued and accepted. As a (now retired) University business professor and administrator of a not-for-profit university focused on the Aviation/Aerospace industry, a male-dominated industry including many veterans, they first need to find available opportunities that align with their interests and they must have access to the financial means that allow them to reach their goals. Knowledgeable counselors can chart them a path to graduation and assist in job placement - internships leading to a living wage with benefits. Free tutorial services included with course offerings, male mentorship with successful alumni participation, and steady encouragement/engagement by faculty and staff help create a caring community. They become part of that.
Hi Patricia. Just wanted to thank you right back, for taking the time to explain further. Good education, that which you describe, is literally priceless, because it changes life opportunities in a real, and good, way. We never know how much it will mean to the individual, it includes a healthy dose of vocational commitment, but it works. Thank you.
As a former medical technologist and a man in a female coded job, I can tell you that one big reason I left the laboratory is that female coded jobs don’t pay well enough to support a family. Raising the pay rate in healthcare and education will do a lot to attract men to those areas.
And where are those fathers? Are they helping to support their children? Many do not. She didn't get pregnant on her own. It isn't the Immaculate Conception.
Still looking for the dots to connect me to misandry.
That said, the point as my meager brain recalls is the ability of MAGA to rally disenfranchised while males to the Trumpist agenda. Dr. Krugman also looked at a rise in this demographic growing over time in the unenemployed, not looking category. Some of the data suggests that increase in service jobs or categories associated with female work of yesteryear may be a contributor to their absence from the active work force. Similarly, but less evident the ability of women to move into roles more traditionally categorized as male may have offered them the choice to be the stay at home parent.
Much of the discussion here has focused heavily on Healthcare where the 'care' part has largely been categorized as women's work while the doctoring part has been largely male. Inroads have been made by both genders into both categories, but, this part is my hypothesis, that roles deemed female have both social stigma, and more important, experience greater resistance to wage increase.
My point, perhaps you missed it, is that the real issue facing us is that over the last four decades the idea of a living wage for workers of every stripe has been degraded by corporate focus on shareholder value and increases C suite stock bonus. This has caused a huge divergence in C suite vs rank and file employee wage growth. Average workers have seen near zero real wage growth during that time, meanwhile back in the Boardroom, pay gap has exploded over 1960/70's as a baseline.
MAGA is using the bait and switch to redirect the ire of the disenchanted to blame women <or any other non white male group> for causing wage decline or lack of high paid work.
The fact is oligarchs have gotten very rich off the back of our collective productivity increases while promising 'trickle down' and conversion of pensions to 401Ks would make us all millionaires in retirement.
Their goal is divide and conquer, make us blame each other because if we stand against the real perpetrators, they will fall.
My mouth dropped when I read his reasoning for raising wages. The unemployment rate for Black women has shot up to 10% during the Trump regime. I wonder if we will get a think piece addressing how we can get them back into the workforce.
I think Krugman was saying, If we raise wages for these jobs, men will take them. I don’t think that’s the same as saying We have to raise wages because we need to get men to take this kind of job. Not because this work has been underpaid since forever.
I appreciate your point about Black women’s unemployment.
I thought the same thing when I read that! How about paying healthcare workers and teachers more because they deserve it. So more men than ever are unemployed but not willing to do "female coded" jobs? That's on them then. It's the empathy piece that's missing and that's on their parents and fellow bros. Democrat talking points can't change that, but sure go ahead and suggest we try. Poor men.
That's what I was trying to convey in my comment elsewhere. (I feel as though I have found my peeps here in your comment and the responses you have received so far!)
Well DUH! Imagine someone just figuring out that traditional female jobs are underpaid! The problem is women are their own worst enemies. We STILL have a large group of women who mentally are stuck at the Middle School Mean Girl level and will do everything possible to sabotage other women while fawning over some 'jock' who is lucky to put together a sentence that a kindergartener would be praised for delivering. "Manly" jobs required brawn, not brains, and the results were men exhausted at the end of the day so they dropped dead at 60. Now we have jobs that require one to be functionally literate!
We need more men in healthcare - BUT - there are huge numbers of employees needed in traditionally male jobs. In particular, skilled trades. We need to establish trade schools and apprenticeships for skilled trades - male and female.
Right. Plumbers, electricians, etc. are good jobs and it's hard to find one when you need one. More focus on that training is a great idea. At one time there were a lot of barriers to getting the jobs though - you had to know someone to get in.
Women can also do plumbing, electrical work, hang drywall, etc. And all of those jobs require one to be functionally literate, to be able to talk to customers, explain what is needed, make sure correct parts are used, and safety equipment is used to reduce the possibility of expensive accidents that cost the individual and company money!
I've read studies that approximately 50% of all hiring takes place through close friends and family networks. But it's probably more true in skilled trades. However, two younger people I know were recruited away from their jobs into skilled trade apprenticeships during the past year by businesses desperate to find employees. Neither person was looking for a job nor did they know anyone in the two businesses. (one plumbing, one electric)
I'm just the opposite of you. I'm a retired engineering technology educator who taught at the community college. Over 3/4 of my students were male. The sad thing is that over 40 years ago when I graduated from college, that was the same ratio so we made no progress. It starts in the high schools with the teachers and guidance counselors. So many have pushed students into the traditional roles, as have the parents. It will be a long time before things will change, especially now that we are going backwards.
What do we do with the gold-standard research which proves women make better doctors, particularly surgeons? It seems wrong to let men become surgeons just to make the men feel better.
yeah okay except most men do not want to work in health care and i don't know if we should try to convince them. most health care jobs are terrible. you couldn't pay me all the money in the world to be a nurse
An interesting but difficult to find book: "Black Prep School" by Gregory R. Miller. He worked as a nurse in the jail and prison system. First reaction: that would be twice as bad as just being a nurse! But it is really interesting. Miller went into it after finishing his stint in the military, has a lot of insights into a culture that has evolved to almost glorifying the prison system as a rite of passage.
I got my doctorate and did some adjunct teaching at UConn. We had faculty that were expert in mental health care in prisons and used to send students there for clinical. It was a great clinical experience and we desperately need more nurses working in prisons.
And in South Korea there is the 4B movement where women reject the four traditional expectations of their gender: marriage, childbirth, dating and sex with men.
Paul should weigh in but I believe that the long term unemployed (people who are not actively looking for work) are not counted in the unemployment report.
Kids are not born with those desires innately. You have the people that put them in the circumstances to be vulnerable to messaging (Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump etc...) and those that exploited these vulnerable kids, Charlie Kirk, Joe Rogan etc.. for personal wealth.
Do we need to make fun of and look down on the victims?
I think it's foolish to accept a narrative of victim hood from the most powerful demographic in the country finally feeling a bit of the pain they've caused everyone else. At the end of the day their grievance is entitlement and you do not correct entitlement by capitulating to it. We correct it through social conditioning and gun control so we aren't beholden to their whims out of fear of violence. Is it actually victim blaming for Black women to question why we only coddle white men?
I must disagree: primate bands seem routinely to sort-of-equate higher status with the ability to hit without being hit back. (See also: demonstrating status by being visibly incompetent yet keeping your status.)
Wait a few years until they bring back the military draft. They're going to need cannon fodder for these wars they are starting. We can even have the "Waffen-ICE."
The image that is put forth is a horribly distorted one-hyper masculine, rigid, acutely sensitive to perceived attacks on honor. It is one of a hurt, insecure and vengeful child.
Perhaps. Certainly for most. Should we ignore how that happened en mass to so many and just point to the flaw? Does that make things better or just make us feel better about ourselves?
It's dishonest and dismissive of literally everyone else's struggles to focus on a tantrum from childish men taking their ball and going home now that thay are expected to put in a sliver of the work others have died doing just for the tiny bit of equality the rest of us receive. We cannot trust people who continue to demonstrate that they will sell us all out given the opportunity.
That's because the 'brawn' type of jobs in heavy industries are being replaced by using robots. So the only "brawn" things left are in Law Enforcement. Huge numbers of high school bullies are drawn to law enforcement because they can take their physical aggression out on those they perceive as 'weak'.
Their recruitment success may be constrained by the number of (overwhelmingly unqualified) men willing to risk future imprisonment by obeying patently unlawful orders in exchange for a $50 K signing bonus and the thrill of riding around in unmarked vehicles terrorizing people who look like “them.”
42 years as a Computer Science prof here and you are exactly right. At the beginning of my career in the mid 70s, my classes were 95% white young men. By the end of my career, my classes were 65%+ female and minority.
The expansion of women and minorities in the work force increased the competition for good jobs. Mediocre males were passed over for very bright women and minority candidates, and that is still happening. So rather than work hard to increase skills, too many young men drop out and harbor great resentment against the other that has usurped their rightful place in the workforce.
One of the reasons for that is that the main employers in the computer field (especially the Silicon Valley crowd) quit hiring Computer Science graduates, insisting on degrees in Engineering instead. I hold an MS in Computer Science and was employed by companies that were heavily staffed with my ilk. When news of this came around in my East Coast world, many of us felt strongly that this was intended to reduce the number of women in the West Coast companies.
About 25 years ago, my alma mater folded the Computer Science department into the college of Engineering. It no longer offers a degree in CS.
What's astonishing about your observation is that you're in one of those areas I'd assumed was still very much a white male redoubt.
However, I can tell you that in my last couple of years, I had transgender students telling me that they were moving into programming and other traditional STEM disciplines. So I at least suspected that things might be changing quickly.
Exactly. I taught at a community college for 17 years. My students were mostly young women, with a few young men, and what you say was also my experience.
My parents taught me that I was in charge of my future, and that I had to earn it. I feel like this message isn’t getting through to young men as readily as it should.
I also think their resentment is misplaced. They should be mad at the billionaires who have rigged our system for their own gain, making it more and more impossible for working people to actually get ahead. I think it is much harder today than in the late 20th century to put oneself through college and graduate school. I could do it because there were grants and scholarships, and yes, a small interest loan. I don’t think students have the same options now. But it isn’t the fault of women.
What's insidious about the billionaire bros is that they know perfectly well that they're the ones responsible for male alienation by outsourcing their traditional jobs, but they use that resentment to their own ends, driving the chaos, deepening the divisions, in order to enrich themselves still further, and to entrench their power until (they think) it cannot be displaced.
100% agree with you! I started out and am still employed in public accounting. When I began my career there were zero women partners, and very few senior managers. The higher up men just assumed women would quit to marry and raise a family. It was fine for them to play golf on Friday with colleagues or a potential client without taking a vacation day, yet those if us who took a day off to take care for our sick child were charged for a vacation day. In my experience I saw the women work more efficiently and were assigned the less desirable clients. I strove and did not expect special treatment. Now I'm reaping the rewards of my sacrifice while many men are angry that they don't have more! Many have much more than me yet still feel victimized! They have to blame someone. I don't envy them for their greed. I think they should be blaming the private equity guys (and most of them are guys) who have bought companies just to destroy them by firing people and then sell the remains to another private equity company.
Our society thinks education is something for the effete (ie effeminate). It is far better to be a top athlete than a top scientist because you will get far more money and attention/admiration if you use your body instead of your mind.
I am an older baby boomer who went to public schools. We admired fellow students who were talented in any area. There was no stigma for a guy to be a top student. In fact there was more pressure on girls to hide their smarts.
By "our society" you of course mean "white males".
Like you, I'm a Boomer and also a white male. Like you, I can remember when there was no stigma attached to being good at something other than sports. It's how I ended up a prof despite coming from a poor family.
The opportunities are always there, especially through education. Somehow, however, "male culture" has turned up its nose at those opportunities and then throws a tantrum at the alleged reverse racism and reverse sexism that's holding them back.
I'd also like to point out that often enough I speak to men my own age who want to assure me that there's no racism, only reverse racism; and no sexism, only reverse sexism.
This seems to be gospel belief among the MAGA cultists. And like all such beliefs, it doesn't make rational sense but is sustained by faith.
1 a gradual but very real improvement for women and minorities re opportunity, driven by Progressives in the Democratic Party. (Thus a target for resentment.)
2 a bigger, faster but less visible worsening for the 90% reducing opportunity by siphoning $80 Trillion = all their increased productivity, to the 1%, driven by Republicans; for the last 40 years, Corporate Democrats have gone along, because 'all that lovely money from rich donors!'
Actually I am a white female. Our class president was a black male who was a very good student and gave an impressive speech. Our class was overwhelmingly white so he won with a lot of votes from white kids — which no one found odd or remarkable. A girl in the class above me won a state award for physics which, given that our small Appalachian town’s school was far from elite, was surprising and a huge source of pride for all of us.
I'll take a decent teacher over the greatest athlete 7 days a week. That's not to say I don't admire a truly gifted athlete, but a good teacher is far more important to me and to society.
But there's another aspect of work that typically was done by men (for reasons known/unknown): the mechanical contrivances industry. Had nothing to do with physical strength. Was (still is, as far as that goes) all about outthinking the materials at hand and making a thing to measure, using the tools available. When done in a supportive atmosphere (bad bosses and/or bad employees can wreck any endeavor) the satisfactions can be pretty massive.
But we've gone from mechanical/repair to digital/throw away...
1 a gradual but very real improvement for women and minorities re opportunity, driven by Progressives in the Democratic Party. (Thus a target for resentment.)
2 a bigger, faster but less visible worsening for the 90% reducing opportunity by siphoning $80 Trillion = all their increased productivity, to the 1%, driven by Republicans; for the last 40 years, Corporate Democrats have gone along, because 'all that lovely money from rich donors!'
For what it's worth, I think it's a combination of deeply-embedded (white) male entitlement, which is essentially racist and sexist, that is reinforced by the divide-and-rule dynamics of capitalism.
In order to maximize profits, capital requires a divisible-against-its-own-interests workforce that is primarily white male because if those white males feel entitled to their relatively low-paying jobs over women and people of color, then they've been tricked into thinking they've gained a real advantage that is theirs by right.
Now we're in a crazy situation where capital has systematically shipped those traditional (white) male "tinker" jobs overseas in pursuit of even greater profit, while women and people of color have happily obtained the education required for the "thinker" jobs...
The onset of (white) male resentment over the "loss" of "entitlement" does the rest.
Are you suggesting that this entitlement caused these young men to come to your classes believing that they'd get a free ride, to where they would eventually drop out?
If that was the widespread problem in classes, it sounds as if these young minds were not capable of the self reflection needed to overcome that entitlement bias to realize the trap they were in. It would truly be a sad statement towards the system that was in place if they could not have been reached in time to change a generation of men.
The received truth is that politics is downstream from culture.
The problem is systemic and deeply embedded in the culture.
Based only upon my experience, I should clarify that in my classes white males became an absolute and conspicuous minority. The majority, by the time I retired in the spring, was some combination of women and persons of color. Their enthusiasm was as obvious as the resentment among the white males, who could see for themselves that they were now in a competition and weren't necessarily going to go to the front of the line.
(In fact, statistically speaking, they still do go to the front of the line. But they didn't like even the appearance that for the first time they were a minority and in a competition not rigged in their favor.)
That is sad; it must have been especially difficult for those who were there to witness that slide in commitment from the early stages. Oh well, now we have no choice but to write them off as dunnage.
Speaking of climate change.... can you imagine how the serious climate scientist feels about our obligations to the future?
What I read is that climate scientists are seeking more and more psychotherapeutic care because of the knowledge they possess and the stresses they endure.
Even as a layman, I have a prescription for Ativan, "as needed".
Thanks Kimberly for acknowledging my serious question.
In general I find it easy to see failing all around us. I must remind myself that not one group, and certainly not one individual can be called out as the deciding piece in this puzzle of a country. That extends to the President. We have been challenged, and we must wrest our country back. Perhaps not completely from the Billionaire class, but to a time before 45.
Blanket statements are for putting a discussion to bed. I will do that now by saying there's good in everyone; and yes there's also bad in everyone.
I think part of it is that life was a lot easier for an average white dude when I was born. A much smaller pool of competitors and much more chance of finding a woman willing to settle, both for support and because marriage was a requirement for adulting.
The "coding" of jobs is absolutely an issue, and truly drives me nuts. And definitely part of it is pay: employers see women as less empowered to fight for good pay as teachers and health care providers especially.
My mom lives in an assisted living facility where most of the caregivers are women but several of the best are men, including one who was a long-haul truck driver for years before back issues made it impossible for him to sit that long. He's one of my mom's favorite people there, and I'd love to see an effort to enlist guys like that bring more men to the field(s).
Stronger unions can also help in this area, especially if they reach out to men with a pitch to help "strengthen" the field. Of course, Republicans bash unions while Democrats have long supported them, but an active approach from them still might help.
my mom still enjoys the company of men, of whom there aren't many there. Yes, I mean that in a platonic way - she grew up with 3 brothers and was married for 58 years, so she's not used to only being around women.
Thanks Mara. I think that your comment is spot-on the mark. I particularly like your last paragraph’s comment about the benefits of stronger unions, the reduction of unions’ roles has played a very big role in impoverishment (men and women equally), and in that alienation which Paul Krugman’s post today talks about. We (people like you and I) are not asking for the sun, the moon and the stars. This sort of stuff is do-able, and it’s not ‘radical-left’/‘communism’/ the end-of-civilisation. I would laugh at Donald Trump’s ridiculous language, if only people didn’t fall for it!
God, it breaks my heart to know that the "discourse" on women's rights and equality has essentially been spinning its wheels in the broader culture for the last half-century.
During the pandemic, I made a point of going back to read the "radical feminists" of the 70s, including Andrea Dworkin.
Do you know who could have predicted that fifty years down the line a twice-adjudicated rapist would be the twice-elected president of the United States?
Women are as much responsible for our lack of cultural progress as men. I know it is most likely because of socialization and it is difficult to put such a thorough brainwashing behind you. I have not totally accomplished this myself. But it is disheartening when women try to teach other women about concept like Dworkin’s and Catherine MacKinnon’s and get shouted down as man-haters.
This article made me a little mad. Like WE have to fix the problem FOR MEN? White men who are in charge? White men who get away with everything? Who fall upward? Sorry, I’m not very sympathetic at the moment.
Thank you. I see it the same way. How much help do men need anyway? Women are loosing their rights, may die in childbirth with no help, don't even have the rights to their own bodies in many places, don't get paid as much, and somehow men need help?
I know Krugman meticulously researchs the topic he writes about but i am not buying this one. In IT we have a shrtage of American qualified personnel. Much of today's jobs are going to better educated Indian people. And yes most are male. This white American male grievance is profoundly irritating. If you want the job get yourself qualified for something...anything. Pull you head out and get an education. Women fought for the right to an education and are succeeding more and more in the job force though still underpaid in most. Men HAVE, in my opinion, and have had all this time more rights than women but they squander the opportunities laid out before them.
The education isn't enough. Many of these people don't want to leave the place where they were born and raised, even when there are no jobs there. I have no idea how to fix that.
Blaming “stupid liberals”, the very (educated) people who want universal college/vocational school and healthcare for ALL by taxing the rich their fair share? Smart. $100k of debt is a choice; with community college or vocational school, in-state tuition, grants and scholarships, maybe a part-time job (which I did all through college) one could do much, much better.
I was basically agreeing with you by taking it one step further. No one can get ahead in this day and age regardless of education level was my point. The college education is no longer worth it.
My daughter’s in state public university tuition and fees last year was $30K. Times that by 4 years. That’s $120K. What’s the interest on that loan gonna be? What about graduate school?
I got a free ride to my state school in the 80’s that tuition bill was about $20k for all four years. I worked two jobs to support myself.
I’m school debt free because I got lucky and was living in a different time but if I had to do it all over again today and take out loans, I wouldn’t. The debt is not worth it.
I advocated for my own daughter to stay home and go to community college or trade school because I don’t want her to be saddled with crippling school debt.
You’re right it’s her choice but I don’t think it’s responsible for parents to advocate for the four year route anymore unless they are wealthy enough to pay the tuition bill themselves thus my comment about “idiot liberals.”
Also if more public high schools incorporated the trade school track like they do in Scandinavia it would not be so “MAGA foolish” to expect to be able to get a good job right out of high school. Our local high school has a pre apprenticeship program kids can take their senior year. The trade schools came and recruited those kids as if they were star athletes eligible for a free ride to a big 10 school. They were offering paid trade schools apprenticeship programs starting at $30/hour with bonuses for completion. For 18 year olds.
It makes universities with their crazy tuition look like a joke, imo.
When I went to college a middle class family could afford to cover tuition and living expenses. Because of the huge budget cuts for public colleges and universities, that is no longer the case. There has been a systematic attack on education since the time of the Powell Memo. The original focus was cutting funding for state colleges and universities and establishing private schools for the upper middle class and above, allowing for public funds to flow to private k-12 schools.
There is a reason Putin’s Apprentice expressed his love for the uneducated.
Unfortunately a large number of young men have been convinced studying and doing well in school is feminine. They realize too late they were grievously wrong, but are not man enough to admit it.
When these problems afflict the Black community, many White men say it's their own fault. Well, what's happened to these White men is their own fault, and they threw in their lot with the Republicans since Ronald Reagan. And now Dems are being told we have to clean up the mess left by Republicans YET AGAIN! Republicans refuse to fund the things that give people the "boot straps" to pull themselves up with, and they still are! Cutting health care. Attacking unions. Funneling money to the rich. Making it harder to qualify for food stamps to feed their kids and obtain jobless benefits. The biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action? White women! The wives of these men, except now these women don't want some of them. Do you blame them?
So sure, Dems can do what they always do and offer to help and Republicans will twist our words and intentions and it's an open question as to whether these men will go with us or stay in the fascist camp where their "manliness" is celebrated. Germany 1933.
Republicans exploit these guys without helping them. I think that's one of Paul's main points. The current administration might be the most egregious ever. But they might be making things bad enough for them that the true-believer core will dwindle.
Why focus on manufacturing jobs as manly jobs? The construction trades are manly jobs but seem to have less appeal to men in these times. There are also jobs in HVAC maintenance, appliance repair, and auto mechanics. Most of these jobs pay a good salary/livable wage.
There is a real need to expand apprentice programs. In the past, employers had apprenticeship programs but not so much anymore. Bring them back and teach more trades at community colleges.
I was a construction worker for over five years. I worked outside when it was five degrees above zero and when it was 109 degrees above zero. One guy on the Hartsfield job collapsed from heat stroke. Another was killed when a concrete truck backed over him. I had a two-ton beam slip from a crane load and hit the ground a few feet in front of me (my laborer's warning kept me from being under it). That was just one of many jobs on which I worked. There are many reasons why these jobs don't appeal to men (and even more reasons why they don't appeal to women).
I forgot Margo. She fell from a wall about 14'. Onto dirt, fortunately. She broke an ankle and was out of work for quite a while. The union insurance kept her alive, and she came back when she could.
Lots of men were happy to send their kids off to college and get them out of the factory/construction site ("I want my kid to come back and be a Walt Whitman quoting snob who'd never do what I do" in the words of one father).
One difficulty with recruiting men to HEAL or other non-"elbow grease" jobs is that they implicitly require a commitment to education, critical thinking, etc. at an early age. And the best paid jobs in professions including IT are intensely education-oriented. What prescription exists for getting boys to want to think and learn?
Chess club. Math club. Science club. Band. Orchestra. Robotics club. Build model rockets.
My four-year-old grandson visited the "big school" and saw kids working on robots. He wants in on that action!
Hook them early, get community volunteers (where are the retired men to help out here?), mentor, mentor, mentor. Boys (and girls) love the hands on stuff. It builds confidence, and the soft skills (teamwork, communication) that seem to be lacking in young men.
In 1973, I became the first female dishwasher at Unit II, although I had to go to the counseling center to get what was then called a boy’s job. “Miss Myrtle Johnson again!” they groaned, and I was resentfully hired. Before moving on to a desk job at the Bancroft Library, I spent two years working in the dining commons. The boys’ shifts were much longer, and paid thirty cents an hour more than dishing up veg and checking meal cards.
I also managed restocking the dining hall, and heavy jobs like deftly lifting six-gallon milk cubes shoulder-high to slide them into the dispenser. My boyfriend, a junior, didn’t need to work. He was hired with a smile, signed up for the longest shifts, and I’d sub-in at the last minute. Devious and effective.
Once my boss settled in, I had nothing to complain about, but thank you, Dr. Krugman, for insight on why some men do. Whining is not as horrifying as seeing Berkeley give up 160 names to the regime, but all genders and races experience wear and tear when especially white MAGA men from Donald Trump to an Instagram rando whine non-stop.
I (a female) worked as a telephone operator at Unit II (Davidson Hall!) at about the same time. I later worked at the Berkeley City Club (not affiliated with UC) as a breakfast server. The evening server positions were reserved for men, who got the big tips. At breakfast, the customers would press quarters into my hand because I reminded them of their granddaughters.
I think there may have been more to Charlie Kirk's appeal to young men than just economic pain felt by those young men.
A friend of mine's son is a sophomore in high school in Masschusetts. (Massachusetts is hardly a hive of conservative thought.) He told his father, who told me, that a lot of the boys in his class were really strongly affected by Kirk's death and that they had been followers of his.
None of these boys are old enough to be directly affected by the anything about the job market for young men, at least not yet. Still, they followed the man.
Why?
This sort of thing isn't really new. Almost a century ago, Father Coughlin had an immense following on the popular media outlet of the day - radio.
MA is full of red areas, "old school" conservative thought, and republicans. Several republicans have been governor of the state.
Kirk was highly skilled propagandist selling racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and grievance. The boys, likley grew up in authoritarian homes, churches, and schools and need to be told how to be in the world. So they were familiar and took kindly to the sound of the flute Kirk was piping on and the boys bought the product. Using the word "followers" is exactly right. They need to question and think for themselves.
I think even liberal men are lost. Truthfully women compete as equals or greater than them in all communities at school and in the workforce and I would argue even more so in affluent areas. Just showing up to school and being a man doesn’t work anymore for being desirable and deserving. Being desirable to women and in life, takes a lot more than it used to take, because women can do what men can do now. To be deserving of a place in college or a high paying job takes perseverance and application of your talents. Women are equal or often outperforming them in school and we are taking professional jobs at higher rates. This hurts all men (if they perceived they were in these areas of work with ease before) and threatens their sense of being just inherently wanted and desired. To me this is the emotional appeal across political party to Charlie Kirk and all those that preach a return to conservative norms. Women are used to the fight for relevance, but men are not. So, the solution is a realization that hard work, an education, and being a good human will get you places regardless of gender is a needed recalibration. We need good jobs for everyone and if typical “men’s jobs” have disappeared at a higher rate, then there is work to be done to create more opportunity and more net jobs. What’s missing from the analysis is the true decline in all available jobs. For example we have less manufacturing, but we have more Uber drivers and delivery services than ever before. Has the tech industry replaced some or a good percentage of manufacturing jobs that men are “coded” for? Whatever the total loss is of jobs we need to create the total number of lost jobs or fill jobs that remain empty due to gender coding (which might be medical and education jobs which then makes sense that they create more net jobs for men bc just switching men into female coded jobs, doesn’t change the net loss but rather just redistributes them) and attract men to these jobs and make sure they feel wanted and well trained for them. Men and women need to have equal opportunities, but men I’m afraid are having a harder time with equality in the workforce, because it truly does make them innately less valuable for just being. That’s a hard thing to get used to— your prominence was not deserved and now you have to work for it. That’s a downer and these traditional norms being espoused put it all back together for men to return to a position of innate power.
You have not included the additive impact of online gaming on boys and young men. Many are as addicted to gaming as others are to drugs. In games one can always hope to be the hero.
Why? He had a huge social media presence & posted rage bait “gotcha” owning the libs moments to his platform constantly. Doesn’t matter that he made up statistics & was an abysmal debater (see his Oxford debate, he didn’t know enough about actual debate tactics to realize how badly out of his depth he was). To a young, undeveloped mind, seeing these clips on tik tok reeled them in.
Turning Point et al. are not concerned with solutions at all. They are only concerned with monetizing the rage. In fact, that applies to the right and the left, and I'm going broke listening to the solutions to the world's problems. The poor, who really need to read/hear these things, of course can't. Commentators, podcasters, have to start bundling their products, much like cable tv did. But I'm getting weary of the monetization.
My husband is a union electrician, a well paying and extremely manly job. He's outside in all kinds of weather doing physically demanding work to get big construction projects up. Right now the AI boom is bringing work to the union hall but when that bubble inevitably bursts where will the infrastructure investments come from? Definitely not from foreign governments, no matter what Trump's trade deals say. South Korea at this moment is looking for a way out of their 350 billion investment pledge after their factory workers were lead out in chains like 18th century slaves. The investment has to come from the government. Biden realized this and had passed a huge green energy infrastructure bill. I don't think us Americans fully realize what we had, what we were going to have, that Trump has taken away.
Many people in my husband's union voted for Trump, but now all those loudmouthed MAGA voters are quiet. Not admitting they were wrong ... Just quiet. Union leadership should be checking in with their rank and file to see if it's time to formally endorse politicians who'll actually work in their interests.
Your point about the demise of the green new deal is so important. An essay about that would worth a hundred about the male rage and despair problem, imo.
Are you listening PK? How about an essay on what the green new deal would have done for America? You’re an economist after all.
How interesting that you imply that it’s okay for HEAL occupations to be underpaid, as long as they are “women’s jobs”, but when men start to do them, we need to make up the wage gap.
Just because you inferred it doesn't mean he implied it. I think he was simply pointing out that it would attract more men into those jobs. You could just as easily infer he meant that it's *not* OK that they pay less now. That's how I took it.
Yes, I agree that that was the implication, but I don't think that was his intent. Let's just face it, these jobs are underpaid and need to be better paid to attract all manner of talented people, whether they are white men or not.
And by itself, better paid HEAL occupations will not solve the problem of disaffected white men. They need healthier examples of people like them who may have originally felt disaffected and then decided to get off their butts to do the work necessary to get a decent job without falling into the MAGAverse. A charismatic Charlie Kirk type talker who extolls the virtue of working towards a goal and achieving it within the opportunities that exist in this country. Someone who is able to counterbalance and adequately discredit the Fox News type propaganda that can be so appealing.
And, yes Paul, Biden did not lose the 2024 campaign. Harris did. Did you forget?
True, Biden's behavior was a net negative, but let's acknowledge that Harris was the candidate because we shouldn't erase women, or anyone for that matter, from history
My 28 year old nephew just graduated in nursing. So some progress. It was a lot of hard work for him to get his degree. Young men will have ( a lot have) to realise its not going to be easy but it can be
The problem begins in the home, where these males are reared to resent female authority and expertise and to bully their female siblings and classmates. It's very hard for people in the "training grounds" such as schools and colleges to reverse ingrained patterns. Apprenticeships may work better because these males respond to males in authority.
I spent my career as a university professor. I taught thousands of students throughout my 39 years in the profession. Granted, I was in the humanities, but I taught courses required for graduation of engineers, College of Ed students, nursing students, and liberal-arts students. The most resistant to literacy were young men. I directed quite a few dissertations, and among them there was a single one written by a cis male, who has remained in touch with me through the years and is a professor in his own right. A number of male students resented, vociferously, a woman in authority. They resisted learning. There were enough male professors from whom these males could take courses, but scheduling issues meant that many found their way in my classes. I won't go into how some maligned me in anonymous evaluations and online because I managed to weather these attacks as well as the misogyny in my profession, where to this day the greater percentage of full professors remains male.
I am a retired nurse educator who taught at the community college, baccalaureate and graduate levels. Community college lift people out of poverty. When I taught in the community college, 20-25% of my students were male. At the BSN level it was less than 5%. We need more men in health care. And patients need to stop assuming that male nurses and orderlies ate doctors.
Yes, agreed. But they can't come in all toxic roid rage. They will have to be taught gentleness, diplomacy, and emotional intelligence skills because when you are recovering from illness or surgery gruff masculinity is the last thing a male or female nor elderly patient wants.
I actually am encouraged by the surge of male nurses and Physicians Assistants I have run across lately in the hospitals and at my GP, and they have proven to be no less caring than the women. I do believe the mocking of men who do 'women's jobs' is dropping away. For a simple fact: nobody can afford it anymore.
And raise the pay so that both men and women can support themselves and their families.
Self-respect is a great motivator.
I wish Paul Krugman would dive into the data and help explain why the prime age male workforce participation rate begins to decline in the 1950s, BEFORE the Civil Rights Act and second wave feminism (i.e. the first graph in this newsletter). Something started to happen in the 1950s and accelerated in subsequent decades. Identifying what that is would result in a better diagnosis and prescription. Considering the data shown in that graph, the MAGA idea of returning to the 1950s wouldn’t address whatever caused prime working age men to start dropping out of the workforce during a period commonly regarded as the golden age of white male workers.
I suspect the return from the war may have something to do with it. Women worked during the war, they didn't like being told to stay home and that will also affect ratios.
But they mostly did go back home.
Alliance-building as a national security priority was one reason, but I suspect the biggest factor was technology (which accelerated in the 1990s, but the effects of which date back to WWII). As an anecdotal example (Paul can provide real data to prove or disprove), read Kurt Vonnegut's novel Player Piano (1952), which is mostly about men losing their identity as creators to technology and uncaring corporations. Sound familiar?
Good point. Women weren’t ‘weighed down’ by thinking of themselves as ‘creators.’ My mom took a job as a lowly machine operator. She jut wanted to feed our family.
It looks like the 1990s showed a sharp increase in manufacturing unemployment. That was around the time Clinton signed NAFTA into law. Also the GATS treaty, (not GATT), which was a giveaway to international corporations.
Remember that automation (the primary driver of the loss of manufacturing jobs) also kicked into high gear about that time. Another point to consider is that the price for manufactured products has to include all the input costs—materials and labor. Moving low skill manufacturing jobs to countries with lower labor costs had the net effect of making those goods cheaper for consumers—which raised living standards for millions of people.
Our real sin was not using the social safety net to support the displaced workers and retrain them for other occupations where they could support themselves and their families.
Robert Reich has been speaking and writing about this recently.
Men came back and took advantage of GI bill educational opportunities. My father was at university during some of those years because US government paid for his education. Men were attending college in high numbers.
That started right after the war.
Injured or traumatized returning soldiers?
That’s related to one of my thoughts, along with the others that people have mentioned. I first noticed the decline started earlier than reported in the media while my state was going through another intense bout of rural vs urban drama 20+ years ago. I started exploring databases. Besides the BLS data used in Krugman’s graph, the US Department of Agriculture kept more detailed data and our land grant university had its own database. I could see rural income shifted from primarily wages pre-1969 to mostly transfer payments (e.g Social Security, agricultural subsidies, unemployment insurance) and rents and lease income. A lot of the land here was given to returning GIs after WW2, so they may have shifted from being wage earners to rentiers. Unemployment insurance here has been used by employers to keep reliable seasonal workers during the winter, which means men are often unemployed and not really looking during the off season. So, it could be white men found different income streams after WW2 that didn’t require them to work full time year round. But exploring it further is beyond my bandwidth so Krugman could have one of his graduate students dig into the possibility.
I'm not sure what is the cause of decline was in the 1950s through 1980s. But, I'm wondering if the drug addiction crisis associated with oxycontin use starting in the 1990s has been a contributing factor in male job participation.
I feel like oxytocin did not discriminate by gender.
Excellent point! I hope Paul responds because I’m curious.
Could building up a bigger military during that Cold War era have something to do with it? Potential civilian workers either conscripted or willfully joining up?
I’m having a hard time with the concept of raising wages in healthcare, social work, and education to benefit men. They should be well paying jobs because they are vital to a free and productive society but they aren’t well paid because they are “female coded” and women’s work is not as valuable as men’s. This sexism is nauseating to me.
At the same time it makes sense because these jobs need the people to work them. If we can coddle men into jobs that matter by actually paying the wages the jobs deserve I guess we should do it. But it’s hard to imagine wanting a MAGA asshole teaching my kid or helping my mom in the hospital after surgery. How do we incorporate these men into the caring professions without completely eliminating the caring? It’s probably gonna take more than just raising the pay.
When I read the comment about raising wages to benefit men, steam started pouring out of my ears. The plight of women, Blacks, Indigenous, and other people of color has been going on since the founding of this nation, but we're still mainly caring about the plight of (white) men.
It reads to me like every group you mentioned has fight for every inch they gained but white men have to be saved because they can’t save themselves.
They didn't have to because they were the ones in power in the Courts, Congress, and White House. Plus they had the guns.
Yes! The real issue is that we've let their resentment mutate into MAGA. Many policies discussed here about education and family policies may have gone a long way to prevent this, but Democrats were effectively shut down in favour of "triangulation" policies.
I agree.
In the IT Industry where I worked for a long time, I noticed how 'men's jobs' that were lucrative and then slowly filled up with more women, since the women worked hard on graduating with the right degrees (example: UX/UI), suddenly flipped and became so much less lucrative.
The oppositive of gentrification, I guess you could call it genderfication.
Bottom line, we need to start mocking the whole idea there are jobs only men can do or only women can do (the latter, naturally, less well paying and typically in support of the man's job). It's a job. It pays a salary you need.
Again, I just don't think even the men can continue to afford this, especially now. Women can afford it less than men because they get less money and buffer for the hard times--but in the end, men can't afford this either. And as for them being less caring, I haven't seen that yet. That MAGA guy you imagine wouldn't last long in the job, would get fired in a hurry.
Hell, the country can't afford this. It's a luxury to pretend men need to receive special treatment like this. We're up against China, let's use good old fashioned common sense. We need both genders working to their fullest potential.
This phenomenon of wage decrease is well documented as some professions have become more inclusive of women, especially medical jobs.
Yes. I remember discussions in the field of psychology in the 1970's and early 80's, that too many women therapists would decrease both our status and wages. I believe that's what happened to physicians in the Soviet Union when the majority shifted to women.
The women in these jobs deserve higher wages. When young men see what they can earn in these jobs their tune will change. Also, you have to meet criteria for working in caring professions. Being good with people and empathetic is key. This is something young men could aspire to. We need a cultural shift.
But most of these jobs have become "second income" jobs appealing to women who may want to work part time or for less money to devote some time to family. This makes them taboo to men. And it has never really caught on for men to be full time homemakers.
Nurse, nurse practitioner, daycare worker, early childhood education specialist, personal care worker, dental hygienist, physiotherapist, executive assistant, administration assistant, bookkeeper, etc etc etc. These are not part time jobs. Men could do this. Women make careers out of this valuable work. Parents and kids need to have top notch daycare during working hours until the kids are full time at school. Good public schools. Family support workers can help fill in the gaps. This is how many Scandinavian countries operate and they get 4 weeks of paid holidays a year. What is nit to like?
Everyone on those jobs deserve higher wages. Heat care corporations are making millions and eating up the smaller competitors. The profits are nor trickling down to workers or patient care.
Like with all jobs, some people just aren't a good fit. If some MAGA type with a grudge and poor bedside manner tries to become a nurse, the chances they remain employed or even hired in the first place will be pretty low. But if you make these positions more appealing on a fundamental level, eventually qualified candidates will emerge from other career fields where perhaps they weren't doing so well. You get a general reordering of the work force.
Yes, we need to incorporate these men into professions, but it doesn't necessarily mean the caring professions.
I completely agree with your point that jobs need to be valued for their inherent worth, freed from with whom they were historically associated. At 71, I remember when newspaper job listings were separated into “help wanted - male” and “help wanted - female”. The feminist movements of the 1970s were instrumental in breaking this down, but it’s an ongoing process. Krugman isn’t advocating for jobs to be gender coded, just the opposite. However, the existing gender coding pays workers less when a job historically was associated with women. Years ago I remember reading that whereas women once earned $0.73 for every $1.00 a man earned, that had risen to $0.75! The point of the article was that’s NOT progress. Breaking down the gender code for healthcare jobs should raise living standards for women working in those fields. It may mean getting in through the back door, but if it gets women higher wages I’m all for it.
As an aside, to understand how strong the gender coding once was, listen to this working session by the comedy team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May (look them up if you aren’t familiar with them). The entire joke of this skit is that a man tells his mother he wants to be a registered nurse. They can’t make it through the skit because the very idea of that is hysterically funny!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p-lVDmNWYM
Yeah, insure that maga men know that people who are ill are more important than when their AR14 malfunctions. You do that and they will care about the humans who are suffering. Someone's convinced them that the government is out to get them, so they get the guns. Who is that someone?
I agree, Galen but I can’t help thinking that young men feel resentment that they no longer rule the roost. Women are no longer subservient to them because of their economic power over us. Women can take care of themselves now. More women are going to college, more women are breaking into “male” designated jobs. Watch ADOLESCENCE. These young boys are listening to Nick Fuentes & the Tate Brothers & yes, Charlie Kirk who preach women should obey their husbands. What does that sound like to you? Huge resentment against women & their successes. What a shame! What a lost opportunity. Women love their men & their little boys. They got jobs to help afford homes they both dreamed of. Instead of merging the marriage structure to an equal, loving partnership, they resented lifting up women to equal themselves. In order for men to feel good about themselves, they needed women to need them, obey them, & be subservient to them. So sad!
I said something before about how it might take "coddling the men" to finally achieve wage parity for women.
What we are leaving out is the cultural shift. It is seismic in that the internet stokes the fear boys & young men feel. IMHO they truly feel they are dispensable. Women do not really need them economically anymore. Heck, we don’t really need them to procreate. I’m a 78 year old woman & my heart aches for my 16 year old grandson who feels alienated, alone & adrift. He has no friends much less a girlfriend.
When men become afraid, they become angry, which in turn turns into rage and explodes into violence. Watch “Adolescence” which portrays part of the problem young males have with young teen (13-14) girls. (It won an Emmy-just so good!) It seems to me, boys & young men did not adapt to the changing times. Women did. We as parents, educators, politicians, & faith leaders didn’t either. Trade schools died on the vine. Think of all the jobs connected to AI, green tech, internet tech, bio-bots, etc. & we have not sent our boys there because we are governed by the climate change deniers & drill-baby-drill crowd. To say Democrats should step up is ludicrous. We’ve been blocked every step of the way.
It’s complicated. Men have to feel like they are needed. They want to take care of their families-they’ve been fed that narrative since Adam & Eve were expelled from paradise. The first step is recognizing we have a huge problem. More guns, taking rights away from women & “others”, consolidating wealth in the hands of the few will never solve it. We have to work together. If only men would view woman as partners & not competitors. That would be a step in the right direction.
I agree the cultural side of this issue is missing, and that it starts much earlier in life. Some time ago, I read a study that about a quarter of 4th graders felt pressure not to be perceived as smart by peers. By 9th grade, the sentiment was expressed by more than half of the students.
Getting 14 year old boys to be willing to shine academically and to lay groundwork for caring professions is a heavy lift. It will also be necessary.
Of course the cultural side is missing, as most feminists do a very poor job applying feminism to men, as it requires accepting they also also victims of bad culture and social conditioning. This is understandable as, obviously, women are focused on women's issues not men's and this colors their views of feminism considerably, people are naturally biased toward their own. This is despite intersectional feminism on paper taking this into account - its not hard to find well read feminists saying the same thing I am saying, but most feminists identify as such in a very loose, non intellectual mostly tribal way and have little in common with well read people.
This is all worsened by the fact there is barely any male liberation movement on the left from men, and most of it is just men adopting common feminist view points without any understanding of it. In other words: no male equivalent of feminism really exists. Something that is becoming much more pronounced of an issue after decades of women rejecting garbage culture that impacted how they viewed themselves and their world. Meanwhile men are mostly where they were at 50 years ago culturally.
Hell if you want a quick way to measure if someone is even serious here, ask them if the body modification of male children's genitals (aka no consent) for cultural, non medical reasons (US circumcision) is misandrist or institutionally sexist. They will do everything possible to argue its totally not, because many people have a dogmatic belief that men by definition literally physically cannot be victims of sexism in the way women are. People like this, which seems to be the majority of the left at this point, are not capable of a productive conversation on why young men struggle so much in school. Nor do they generally care to.
Its hard to not notice what is happening: Instead of looking at how boys are taught and socialized and the effects this has down stream, and how we treat them culturally we look at mens internal locus of control and decision making in a vacuum. We assume the institiutional status quo is just. There is also zero discussion whatsoever of anything practical we could do to improve their prospects, as actively helping young men specifically, unlike other groups, is automatically rejected as not fitting into a narrow ideological box.
I can only imagine all it takes for a right winger moron to believe strongly they are on the right side in the endless culture war is to read any left leaning comment section on men, including this one.
Invariably its the same: men are doing worse, and we are just going to assume this is bio essentialist and thus justified so that we can feel better not providing any sympathy or having any self criticism on how we treat them ourselves (especially how parents raise boys)
Women evolved because we had to. We grew resilience inside of ourselves personally and collectively. Men did not have to evolve because they have been on top for centuries, broadly across societies. They didn't need the same level of resilience as we developed then, but now that men have lost so much because of end-stage Capitalism (which is actually what is really to blame for their problems at core and not women's progress), we are seeing what not having enough resilience looks like in the toxic MAGA resentment ethic and fallout.
Maybe this is the start; perhaps men will begin to evolve their mindset and ideas. Maybe there is an endgame where we have parity and equality someday because we've been able as a species to evolve past Capitalism and Patriarchy. But, I will tell you this, I'm not going back, and neither are most of the women I personally know and follow. I will fight to the death before I see my daughter turned into someone's handmaid. So, men will either have to evolve or kill us. Then it won't matter because humanity will be done. And if they/we let it come to that, it would probably be for the best anyway.
You're assuming the solution here is 'men need to try harder' when most likely the cause and solution is cultural and begins with how parents raise (or in practice, don't raise) boys. Like this is just pro status quo.
You need to apply feminism to men if you want to get anywhere but this first requires acknowledging they also have social and cultural pressures that massively impact how they think and view the world. Women adopted feminism and were able to reject nonsense through it, men should do the same.
Then raise your sons exactly how you raise your daughters. Parents won’t, though, they will continue to put boys in the same strict gendered box they always have because they are terrified of raising weak, feminized men. So these boys will continue to not be fully human because so much has been cut out emotionally from them. And the fallout from all this is men & women not liking each other, the gender war, not enough babies being born, and all that comes from that. Society could fix all this if it changed how it raises boys. But it won’t.
You should read two x chromosomes if you want to see how bad the divide has gotten. You can read just straight open misandry now. It wasn't nearly that bad a year ago. So this is even on one side anymore. Social media algorithms and companies who profit off of it, is just making this work like everything else.
The way to raise wages in any industry is unions. Managements will pay the lowest wages they can get away with. It will take some sort of organized employee activity to get their attention. That includes a willingness to strike if necessary.
I and some of my family members have had recent hospital stays and I have also been amazed at the number of male nurses there are compared to the past. Somehow the message is getting through
My nephew is an ICU nurse in a neurosurgical unit. Good job and he's good at it.
Not all men are MAGA creeps.
Thank you Paul Krugman for showing me something important that I didn’t know.
Krugman has it wrong. Middle-class and poor men are being exploited by right-wing brainwashing pushed by elite wealthy con men.
If Krugman was right, we'd see a lot less concentration of wealth controlled by men. But what we can all clearly see is a extreme concentration of wealth held by a handful of men who are using that wealth to push a false narrative and attack the greatest threat to their power, a democracy that taxes and regulates them. It's much easier to blame liberal democracy for the downfall of your average Joe than the wealth gap especially when these elite oligarchs control our mass media and the narrative. And, unfortunately, worshipping wealth and power is the American way.
So, Krugman is wrong here, the wealth gap is the issue controlled by a handful of con men and nothing will change until that wealth gap is addressed and limited/capped. Unfortunately, the wealth gap is growing even larger every day and our system has already been corrupted.
The reality is, the Democrats have zero chance of fixing this problem, it will literally take a revolution at this point and likely over two or three generations - we're talking over a 100 years before humanity even has a chance to get out of this one, that's how entrenched this problem is.
You and Krugman are both right. But Krugman is pointing to a way out - Democrats need to ACT. Democratic states have a lot of power and need to show the way. Get on board. Young men need a place in this world - start giving them one.
I've always been on board and at no point have I ever felt threatened by having to compete with women, minorities or immigrants in the workforce, in fact the opposite, I embrace it because it grows the economy and creates more opportunity. Some of us are not afraid of equality and never were. What is intolerable to me are those conned by the rich elite men who want to blame taking wealth out of the system from everyone else on the very liberal democracy that gave them that wealth in the first place. It's a sickness.
I agree there is a lot of twisted thinking going on. And we need to defend against it.
I worked in a male dominated workplace for 10 years. Technological advancements evolved that workplace into an 50/50 gender ratio for the last twenty years. It was a really nice workplace.
The men themselves need to get on board the train - do better in HS, get advanced skills, either in a trade school type program, or community college. It's like a buffet, you got to help yourself.
The HEAL jobs mentioned are likely less under threat from loss to AI. The same as plumbing, etc., which require diagnosis of the problem and physical work.
And all require hard work. Perhaps men just think they shouldn't have to work hard.
I am male, have a Ph.D. (+ postdoc), got paid way too much and I am skeptical about this notion. Advancement in the labor market is relative. If we all have Ph.D.’s, then we are all working at $7.50 / hr. because employers are spoiled for choice.
I’m not looking to preserve my privilege here. I’m retired. I just think the problem in the labor marketplace is actually lack of labor negotiating power, rather than lack of education. You can learn most things on the job. I never took a programming class in my life, but did well at software for a career for a FAANG for 21 years. When we demand ever more education, all we do is increase the cost in years and $$ of producing a worker, and turn the screws ever tighter on women trying to balance work vs. family by sacrificing their youth to keep up with the guys. Mostly what we do is blame the victim for the hostile labor marketplace that does not pay employees what they are worth.
It helps if there is a nearby public community college. Where I live, the nearest public one is over an hour's drive. While there is a church-run one that is closer, it is more expensive.
Why would a church run a community college unless to indoctrinate their religion?
Private will always be more expensive. Ask for financial aid. They have it. Or move.
Re: discrimination against boys in K-12
There were studies in my teaching years until 2010, that showed teachers called on boys more often than girls. I caught myself doing that. My students came from many immigrant backgrounds, with some white kids. I can’t comment on differential treatment of non-whites, who were the majority in my classes.
But I have known more boys than girls who absolutely loathed school, because it was not geared to them as individuals.
It seems a significant portion of young men have eschewed education and retreated from real life into the fantasy world of online gaming. If allowed, they hang out in their mother’s basements playing video games. In the video games they can imagine themselves as a conquering hero that vanquishes evil villains and monsters, winning the heart of a voluptuous princess or some other great prize. So of course they are disappointed when in real life women have no interest in them.
Reality has no chance when competing with such addictive fantasy. Until we as a society address this problem, everything else will be nibbling around the edges.
They don’t just need to act, they need to become progressive. The problem is that the Democratic Party leadership can no more hold its nose long enough to actually help these guys than the Republicans can.
You are right, Nebulous7.
And as a now-old woman who succeeded in a male-dominated field (software development, 1983-2017, in projects ranging from safety analysis of nuclear power plants to cancer research), it pisses me off that Krugman's suggestion to help the angry young men is to *offer to pay them more* so that they will consider working in fields that are presently filled by women. Pay the women more!
I believe that the Professor meant we should pay both men and women more - the same pay for the same work.
I know that was what he meant. My point was that women have been fighting for pay equity my entire life. The only way women can get anything close to equal pay is to be entrepreneurial (at least, that's what it took for me). I just had this knee-jerk reaction to Krugman's catalyst for better pay for socially critical jobs like health care and education being a need to coddle young men.
Young men's (and men's in general) angst and frustration is always to be taken seriously. Fewer and fewer men going to college generates lots of handwriting; if it was women, the media would just write it off as "girls, what can you do."
And give fathers paid paternity leave too (I know-some men rather go to work, than cater to the mom and baby, but they are missing out on a great part of family life).
Same low pay for the same work. Make the billionaires like Elon richer! They need to buy more private jets, yachts and mansions. Anything else is communism!
And the point is that MAGA leveraged a 'feeling' of being left out, left behind, discriminated against in this group and used it to their advantage. In short they are busy pulling wool over their eyes, lest they discover that MAGA in fact supports the oligarchy that diminishes their chance at the American Dream.
The Sleeper Must Awaken.
Isn't "equal pay" what women have been striving for since the 1960's? And the ERA still hasn't been passed....probably won't be until there's someone other than an old white man as president.
The problem isn't Presidential; it's Congress. I read yesterday that Biden tried to get Congress to act on it when the last State ratified it and they refused to do so.
I also had careers in male-dominated fields and was in the first class of women admitted to a previously all-male college. (White) men have been coddled and advantaged since the founding of this country. Meanwhile the plight of women and Blacks and other persons of color are not adequately addressed. Second chair AGAIN.
So called "white male rage" is pretty much men's fury at having lost their hundreds of years of privileged status.
And the same men, the .1%, the CEOligarchs, the wealthy white guys who helped erase "American white male privilege" (for money & power– women and minorities –especially "illegals"– work for lower wages) then turned around and fueled the fury over a situation they helped cause. Once again, for money & power.
These wealthy CEOligarchs funded Kirk's rise to popularity and influence, and were a big factor in his assassination in encouraging this societal fear and hatred of trans-persons, a tiny and not dangerous population.
And now they are exploiting Kirk's death, and in so many ways! Squashing free speech after supporting Kirk's brazen lies is just one. They look to be inciting more violence, maybe even open rebellion or civil war.
We can’t actually solve the problem of under paid workers until we recognize that fighting amongst ourselves doesn’t actually do anything except distract from the fact that workers are underpaid. I fear you are still fighting the last war.
non-white men are suffering too. I'm including them. I said women and Blacks and other persons of color. Not sure why you thought that meant only women. I'm not shaming white men as a group, just acknowledging their position of power and privilege. No doubt It's difficult for them to. experience erosion of that status. I've experienced lots of resentment and attempts to undermine my worth as a result. (Wouldn't have gotten in to Caltech except for being a woman, it's reasonable to pay a colleague more, even though he was junior to me, because he has a family, etc). I want society to be equitable. It's not now.
my objection is to Paul's statement that we should raise wages to attract men. IMO, we should raise wages for those jobs because they are underpaid!
I've heard your argument before.gg Because I stand up fpr women and other disadvantaged groups, I hate men. You're going to believe what you want to believe. There's no discussion to be had here.
He’s not wrong. He’s written extensively about the damage income inequality has done. But there’s no quick fix for that. It will take a revolution to dislodge the parasitic oligarchs from the nation’s blood stream.
If we want to get these men working, he’s making suggestions for how to do that. The fact that we don’t pay teachers what their worth is also a result of income inequality.
Some blue states like MA and CT do pay teachers much higher salaries because they realize the connection education has to the economy. I’m in a red state where teachers are drastically underpaid and earn little respect. That’s the way the state wants it.
If these men out of the workforce are largely in red states then it’s going to be twice as hard to improve their lives. The state needs to keep them angry because it’s a large part of how they stay in power. That brings us back to the needed revolution in thinking.
Personally, I think it doesn’t require a revolution. We just need to add worker representation to the board room. As my modest fix, I would suggest all of the proxy votes for institutional shareholders that do not allow individuals to vote (index funds, private equity and the like) should be assigned to the employees of the company.
Why should we do this? Management is currently enjoying a rubber stamped blank check from 50-80% of the shareholders who never vote. It makes whatever they want much easier to pass, leading to exploitation and short termism. We can take Musk’s new ridiculous pay package as an example. It isn’t practical for a shareholder of VTI to vote in 5000 different shareholder elections of the 5000 companies that comprise the index fund. Vanguard won’t do it. They are trying to keep expenses down. Nobody else will do it for the same reason. Only employees will do it for free and can be relied upon to really know what is going on at the company.
If employees had a voice at work, a lot of these problems would be cleaned up every quickly, starting, I am sure with the tortured labor markets followed quickly by self dealing senior management.
Wealth inequality is at the root of so many of our problems. This problem with men in particular is merely a subset of that larger problem. Paul's suggestions for fixing the problem with men may be more doable politically than solving wealth inequality but it's just a bandaid. Better than nothing, I suppose, but I like attacking root causes. The time is ripe to be bold. Democrats need to make wealth inequality their signature issue and push it hard. It is a simple universal message. A heavy political lift for sure so let's start lifting. To paraphrase JFK, we do it, not because it is easy, but because it is hard...and therefore worthwhile.
Thomas Piketty, in his book, Capital in the 21st Century, studied the records of many countries' economic outcomes from the time they were first recorded and concluded that if our US wealth inequality continued on the same trajectory as it's been, then we would have a bloody revolution within 30 years. It's gotten much worse. I'm not sure the people in power want to curtail this growth.
Mancur Olson "The Rise and Decline of Nations" is also a very good read about the tendency of "rent seekers" in democracy to eventually turn the country into oligarchies. Really, after Citizens United, what else would anyone expect to have as an outcome?
I am sure they don't want to. We will have to make them. (Yes, I have read Piketty - prescient)
"I expect that, over time, Trump’s approval among young men will fade as it becomes clear that he is utterly failing to deliver on his promises".
I disagree Dr. Krugman. I expect that over time, Trump's approval among young men will not fade because authorities like Melon Fusk has told them that economic pain will temporarily get worse before it gets better here in Amerika. The young men in our country will be old men by the time the pain finally registers in their psyche and by then, these rubes will be comfortably numb
There's a school of thought that masculinity means being a complete dick to everyone, particularly women. The Felon of the United States is the role model. That will be enough for some men, though hopefully not all.
There is a more moderate school of thought which recognizes that many/most women prefer men who earn more than they do — the male provider expectation/myth.
If we stop for a moment and consider how that expectation plays out against an expectation for pay equality and the presently oversized female college population, using our knowledge of basic statistics, it should not be hard to see that (provided these representations are accurate) most men are going to find themselves deeply disfavored on the dating market. That alone should explain quite a lot of male rage from quite a lot of men. So for every chauvinist you decry, there are, I suggest, dozens more who simply feel society is being unreasonable.
That is, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence, or at least charitably in this case, failing to live in a world where all men are (paid) above average.
Listening to my female friends over the years, I'd say pay is not the driving factor. It may be an adjustment but it's not the absolute dealbreaker it's made out to be.
Democrats aren't going to help as long as "they're eating the cats! they're eating the dogs!" gets 49.8% of the people bothering to vote.
89.5 million registered voters did not vote in the last election. Why not? I've offered to call 500 people and ask. The head of our Dem party here has taken me up on it but asked to wait until after we vote on prop 50 here in CA. I have very mixed feelings about it, but will be making those calls.
You’re both right.
Money in politics will always be a problem, though.
I think Krugman article is an explanation of why Middle-class and poor men are so easily exploited by right-wing brainwashing pushed by elite wealthy con men.
Preach...I guess? You really want a revolution? THat's kind of scary.
Gender has little to do with it. More men certainly hold more wealth than women, but changing gender won't solve the problem of inequality. The list of far right women is just as long as men. It's about ideology, not gender.
I agree with you. I commented negatively on this article because of the entrenched sexism in it, and the idea that boosting one gender is the solution, when it isn't. Our culture indeed worships wealth and power, both of which have been in the hands of rich men for 2,000 years. This is patriarchy and the irony is that MAGA men embrace it even as its effect is to economically oppress them. "Manly jobs" is one of the most ridiculous terms I've come across yet. A couple of summers ago I did an independent study on misogyny, and Krugman's article, while not reeking of it, gives a few whiffs, especially when he says the Democrats need to "help men." I responded by saying they need to help all people. Otherwise, the disparity will persist.
Do you see a three-factor problem of Gini Index (wealth inequality) correlating with Gun Homicide Rate AND male unemployment rate?
https://open.substack.com/pub/workingclassproject/p/new-poll-working-class-voters-want?r=2vkb9x&utm_medium=ios
Well, here you see pretty standard "progressive" anti-male rhetoric. I consider myself a "progressive". (surprise! I;m here, right?) but I've been hearing routine anti-male stereotypes for decades now. This has helped neither males or progressive causes, but it has helped the MAGA world big time.
I'm a white male and you can definitely put me in the category of "anti-male". I know it may be overly simplistic but most of the world's problems have been caused by only one of the two sexes.
And most of the solutions too. The fact is, for most of human history, most of the world's material advancements have been made by men, overwhelmingly so until the late 20th century. There are all kinds of explanations for this, but the idea that women will make the world a better place if only they were in charge remains an untested hypothesis.
And there have been plenty of tough, aggressive women leaders already: Margaret Thatcher, Gold Meir, Indira Gandhi, Hilary Clinton (some say Trump won because he was the "peace and antiwar" candidate in 2016 and maybe 2024 too, compared to the women he was running against both times. Interesting that Trump won both times against women, but lost to a man in the middle (2020)). So it's hard to make the case that "feminine values" or whatever, would be any different if they were in charge, or that countries that are run that way can actually happen or do better in the long run. Angela Merkel - no weak sister herself - let in hordes of Islamic migrants, out of "compassion" partly - and Germany is still reeling over it, and mostly regretting it, even talking about reversing it.
I’m very ready for women to have equal seats at all tables.
…and, cynic that I am—my excuse: I've met humans—I fully expect them to exhibit behaviour fully as horrible as men's, perhaps a lot of it different such that keeps the 'fresh' in 'What _fresh_ Hell is _this_!?'.
Current exceptions benefit from those women who rise having had to be exceptional.
This is not about men vs women. This is simply about equal opportunity and pay - and the change to use the full range of our population to make the country work to the best of its ability.
Indeed.
Also socialization.
A man who applies for a job in a traditional female domain is often implicitly questioned.
Frankly, it is probably more about the historical need for women to attempt to have 6-8 children to balance out against infant mortality and death during childbirth. If you didn’t make that happen, one way or another, your society would wither and die and be replaced by those who did. We inherit those value from our progenitors many generations before not because they were wise or just or right, simply necessary. There does not even need to have been an ethos or culture driving it, since it is enforced in the most simple Darwinian terms. You either did or did not.
Obviously women spending much of their lives bearing and breastfeeding children meant there was not much time for labor outside the home. We don’t need to do that anymore. We are definitely swinging too far in the other direction with births per woman dropping below 2 and in many places below 1 in some western countries. That will have dire economic consequences as societies become over saturated by non working elderly.
Before turning to double and triple down on work, though. It is probably worth gently revisiting the question of why we are working so hard and so long to enrich other people and whether that is even a worthy goal. I feel our collective priorities have become utterly lost and directionless. In many ways, a priority to the family by at least one parent was healthier.
“Hordes” of Islamic migrants. “Compassion,” not compassion? Interesting word choices, Scott.
Well, Merkel thought she'd get cheap labor and more people to offset Germany's demographic decline, but that's not the cultural theme among these migrants. The babies are, but almost none of those new mothers work, and even many of the men don't either. It's getting better for the men who've been there since the big surge under Merkel 8 years ago: https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/56857/germany-employment-of-refugees-eight-years-after-their-arrival-reaches-68-percent
"there have been plenty of tough, aggressive women leaders already"... huh, some?.. Not exactly plenty?
Actually, as a woman I feel betrayed by the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Christie Noem, Tulsi Gabbard and some of the others...
There are more than my partial list, a lot more. But those listed prove that just having a female leader means nothing in terms of how a country is governed. Same for corporations, though there is some evidence that women leaders seek consensus more than men.
Islamophobia isn't a good look, Scott. Your comment about Merkel is bigoted, your "hordes of Islamic immigrants" is just plain ugly and so MAGA.
Yup. That's what a lot of "progressives" believe.
Well...from what I can see, at the moment, none of Putin and his entourage are female, nor Netanyahu and his government... or the rebels in Soudan... or North Korea 's heads of State... or closer to home, no female US president ever? And the vast majority of prisoners is still male I believe... for example... so... :) Not being 'anti male' here and I am sure you can find a few counter examples along history. ;)
Yep. Give us ladies a chance to fuck everything up for a change 😘 😘😘
What exactly is anti-male here?
The assumption that a give group is full of toxic attitudes that need to be policed before members of that group can be admitted. If you said that about (say) Blacks as a group you would quickly and rightly be called out as racist.
Well,there is some reason why the DNC website homepage for a very long time had a big photo of 4 black young women and 1 old white woman on their This is the Democratic Party homepage. They recently changed that to admit some young white males and young white women on a photo. But, hey, diversity is progress.
https://democrats.org/
The Dems went overboard trying to be "inclusive." It seemed fake and frankly a bit offensive. Pandering is not the way to make people feel included.
I've been hearing routine anti-woman stereotypes for just as long yet astonishingly they're not going on shooting sprees or voting for the feminist counterpart of Trump (not that there is one).
The difference is that these men have lost status that they were probably taught they were due. Maybe it’s a Male identity issue as historically Men receive an identity through working. Then we can add in all of the stereotypical “Real Men are X” sexism and gender roles that make some men feel inferior and hopeless that anything can change or that change would mean “not being a man”.
Ever since I was a child I strongly believed that sexism of men through gender expectations was a cage that many men wouldn’t even see, but it was harmful in similar ways to sexism of women through those same gender expectations. A male job or a female job should simply be a job held by a male or female.
Yes, sexism harms us all, a trap for men as surely as women. I can’t imagines the pressure of having to be a protector and provider when technological change and the upper classes makes it nearly impossible.
Yes, exactly. Rates of violence against women are still high and we were the first group to have our rights reduced in this stupid era, followed shortly thereafter by brown people and immigrants, yet much digital ink is spilled discussing the problems of angry white men, the ones shooting people. What lesson does that teach us?
Bam.
Read Krugman today on Male rage and what we need to do about it. https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/exploiting-male-rage?r=1mld81&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=audio-player
It makes me furious, but I 100 percent agree.
Joe, my sense is that the "roid-rage" males are sucking up all the media attention and yes, they are a source of valid concern. Mavenmaven below has a point about ICE, which seems to be a magnet for angry men. On the other hand, I'd like to think that there are plenty of men who have the sense to know that the world is not going to retrograde and are looking for a way through.
I've read that actually, ICE is attracting many existing police because of the higher salaries. This has created a shortage of deputies in rural communities.
🤞🤞🤞
Hi Joe. You’re both right (gentleness, etc) and wrong (if they succeed, they calm down). Community college offers a pathway, not for all, out of the dead-end of ‘no heavy industry’ life. It’s a step, not a solution.
It is a step, thank you, and in my experience they do calm down as they see progression toward their life goals. This usually takes about a year from sometimes angry entry to feeling valued and accepted. As a (now retired) University business professor and administrator of a not-for-profit university focused on the Aviation/Aerospace industry, a male-dominated industry including many veterans, they first need to find available opportunities that align with their interests and they must have access to the financial means that allow them to reach their goals. Knowledgeable counselors can chart them a path to graduation and assist in job placement - internships leading to a living wage with benefits. Free tutorial services included with course offerings, male mentorship with successful alumni participation, and steady encouragement/engagement by faculty and staff help create a caring community. They become part of that.
Hi Patricia. Just wanted to thank you right back, for taking the time to explain further. Good education, that which you describe, is literally priceless, because it changes life opportunities in a real, and good, way. We never know how much it will mean to the individual, it includes a healthy dose of vocational commitment, but it works. Thank you.
I'd say it's a solution, but you have to do the work to win the prize.
As a former medical technologist and a man in a female coded job, I can tell you that one big reason I left the laboratory is that female coded jobs don’t pay well enough to support a family. Raising the pay rate in healthcare and education will do a lot to attract men to those areas.
Hello, tap, tap, tap ... is this thing on?
And how many single working moms are our there struggling to do the same damn thing?
The one where men discover the gender wage gap
Precisely.
And where are those fathers? Are they helping to support their children? Many do not. She didn't get pregnant on her own. It isn't the Immaculate Conception.
The obtuseness is maddening but also pretty funny 😆
EXACTLY right.
You ROCK, Jenn!
Still looking for the dots to connect me to misandry.
That said, the point as my meager brain recalls is the ability of MAGA to rally disenfranchised while males to the Trumpist agenda. Dr. Krugman also looked at a rise in this demographic growing over time in the unenemployed, not looking category. Some of the data suggests that increase in service jobs or categories associated with female work of yesteryear may be a contributor to their absence from the active work force. Similarly, but less evident the ability of women to move into roles more traditionally categorized as male may have offered them the choice to be the stay at home parent.
Much of the discussion here has focused heavily on Healthcare where the 'care' part has largely been categorized as women's work while the doctoring part has been largely male. Inroads have been made by both genders into both categories, but, this part is my hypothesis, that roles deemed female have both social stigma, and more important, experience greater resistance to wage increase.
My point, perhaps you missed it, is that the real issue facing us is that over the last four decades the idea of a living wage for workers of every stripe has been degraded by corporate focus on shareholder value and increases C suite stock bonus. This has caused a huge divergence in C suite vs rank and file employee wage growth. Average workers have seen near zero real wage growth during that time, meanwhile back in the Boardroom, pay gap has exploded over 1960/70's as a baseline.
MAGA is using the bait and switch to redirect the ire of the disenchanted to blame women <or any other non white male group> for causing wage decline or lack of high paid work.
The fact is oligarchs have gotten very rich off the back of our collective productivity increases while promising 'trickle down' and conversion of pensions to 401Ks would make us all millionaires in retirement.
Their goal is divide and conquer, make us blame each other because if we stand against the real perpetrators, they will fall.
United We Stand
Be the Change.
So frustrating that the low wages in female-coded jobs can only be improved because we need to attract men to them!
Exactly! I logged in to say just that. Somehow discrimination, insults and low wages weren't a problem until while men experienced them.
There are lots of lonely women but only incels get the "what can we do about them?" treatment.
Because lonely women don't go on killing sprees?
My mouth dropped when I read his reasoning for raising wages. The unemployment rate for Black women has shot up to 10% during the Trump regime. I wonder if we will get a think piece addressing how we can get them back into the workforce.
I think Krugman was saying, If we raise wages for these jobs, men will take them. I don’t think that’s the same as saying We have to raise wages because we need to get men to take this kind of job. Not because this work has been underpaid since forever.
I appreciate your point about Black women’s unemployment.
I thought the same thing when I read that! How about paying healthcare workers and teachers more because they deserve it. So more men than ever are unemployed but not willing to do "female coded" jobs? That's on them then. It's the empathy piece that's missing and that's on their parents and fellow bros. Democrat talking points can't change that, but sure go ahead and suggest we try. Poor men.
That's what I was trying to convey in my comment elsewhere. (I feel as though I have found my peeps here in your comment and the responses you have received so far!)
Well DUH! Imagine someone just figuring out that traditional female jobs are underpaid! The problem is women are their own worst enemies. We STILL have a large group of women who mentally are stuck at the Middle School Mean Girl level and will do everything possible to sabotage other women while fawning over some 'jock' who is lucky to put together a sentence that a kindergartener would be praised for delivering. "Manly" jobs required brawn, not brains, and the results were men exhausted at the end of the day so they dropped dead at 60. Now we have jobs that require one to be functionally literate!
We need more men in healthcare - BUT - there are huge numbers of employees needed in traditionally male jobs. In particular, skilled trades. We need to establish trade schools and apprenticeships for skilled trades - male and female.
Right. Plumbers, electricians, etc. are good jobs and it's hard to find one when you need one. More focus on that training is a great idea. At one time there were a lot of barriers to getting the jobs though - you had to know someone to get in.
Women can also do plumbing, electrical work, hang drywall, etc. And all of those jobs require one to be functionally literate, to be able to talk to customers, explain what is needed, make sure correct parts are used, and safety equipment is used to reduce the possibility of expensive accidents that cost the individual and company money!
I've read studies that approximately 50% of all hiring takes place through close friends and family networks. But it's probably more true in skilled trades. However, two younger people I know were recruited away from their jobs into skilled trade apprenticeships during the past year by businesses desperate to find employees. Neither person was looking for a job nor did they know anyone in the two businesses. (one plumbing, one electric)
Trump has been deporting the workers who were willing to work for those low, low wages.
That might help raise the minimum wage for those workers who are left doing those jobs, because those workers will be scarce.
I have never assumed that male nurses and orderlies "ate" doctors. I had no idea in fact. ;)
They didn't use to but medical schools in the past decade have been churning out way too many MDs.
No, they have not. There is a shortage of physicians, not a surplus.
We don't talk about that.
*are doctors. They didn’t eat them. lol
“They're eating the doctors! They're eating the nurses!”
🤣
I'm just the opposite of you. I'm a retired engineering technology educator who taught at the community college. Over 3/4 of my students were male. The sad thing is that over 40 years ago when I graduated from college, that was the same ratio so we made no progress. It starts in the high schools with the teachers and guidance counselors. So many have pushed students into the traditional roles, as have the parents. It will be a long time before things will change, especially now that we are going backwards.
My daughter is an engineer. 😁
What do we do with the gold-standard research which proves women make better doctors, particularly surgeons? It seems wrong to let men become surgeons just to make the men feel better.
Thanks JoAnne. I agree totally.
yeah okay except most men do not want to work in health care and i don't know if we should try to convince them. most health care jobs are terrible. you couldn't pay me all the money in the world to be a nurse
One reason I have high respect for nurses, regardless of gender.
An interesting but difficult to find book: "Black Prep School" by Gregory R. Miller. He worked as a nurse in the jail and prison system. First reaction: that would be twice as bad as just being a nurse! But it is really interesting. Miller went into it after finishing his stint in the military, has a lot of insights into a culture that has evolved to almost glorifying the prison system as a rite of passage.
I got my doctorate and did some adjunct teaching at UConn. We had faculty that were expert in mental health care in prisons and used to send students there for clinical. It was a great clinical experience and we desperately need more nurses working in prisons.
Is this unique issue to America? South Korea has built a world class manufacturing economy.
And in South Korea there is the 4B movement where women reject the four traditional expectations of their gender: marriage, childbirth, dating and sex with men.
Why is it that our unemployment rate is so low if all these men are not working?
Paul should weigh in but I believe that the long term unemployed (people who are not actively looking for work) are not counted in the unemployment report.
The "male jobs" they are bringing back seem to be in ICE
that's the only thing maga men are capable of.
Careful. It may be low-hanging fruit but their attraction to it comes from both exploitation and long endured despair.
Don't forget a taste for petty power, a chance to hit people without consequences, and racism, also attractions.
Kids are not born with those desires innately. You have the people that put them in the circumstances to be vulnerable to messaging (Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump etc...) and those that exploited these vulnerable kids, Charlie Kirk, Joe Rogan etc.. for personal wealth.
Do we need to make fun of and look down on the victims?
I think it's foolish to accept a narrative of victim hood from the most powerful demographic in the country finally feeling a bit of the pain they've caused everyone else. At the end of the day their grievance is entitlement and you do not correct entitlement by capitulating to it. We correct it through social conditioning and gun control so we aren't beholden to their whims out of fear of violence. Is it actually victim blaming for Black women to question why we only coddle white men?
I must disagree: primate bands seem routinely to sort-of-equate higher status with the ability to hit without being hit back. (See also: demonstrating status by being visibly incompetent yet keeping your status.)
Wait a few years until they bring back the military draft. They're going to need cannon fodder for these wars they are starting. We can even have the "Waffen-ICE."
The image that is put forth is a horribly distorted one-hyper masculine, rigid, acutely sensitive to perceived attacks on honor. It is one of a hurt, insecure and vengeful child.
Like Trump
Perhaps. Certainly for most. Should we ignore how that happened en mass to so many and just point to the flaw? Does that make things better or just make us feel better about ourselves?
It's dishonest and dismissive of literally everyone else's struggles to focus on a tantrum from childish men taking their ball and going home now that thay are expected to put in a sliver of the work others have died doing just for the tiny bit of equality the rest of us receive. We cannot trust people who continue to demonstrate that they will sell us all out given the opportunity.
Sadly yes.
That's because the 'brawn' type of jobs in heavy industries are being replaced by using robots. So the only "brawn" things left are in Law Enforcement. Huge numbers of high school bullies are drawn to law enforcement because they can take their physical aggression out on those they perceive as 'weak'.
I hear the pay is good, standards low ... pretty sure my ovaries would get in the way.
Indeed, male jobs where you can beat somebody up on the street without consequences for you.
Their recruitment success may be constrained by the number of (overwhelmingly unqualified) men willing to risk future imprisonment by obeying patently unlawful orders in exchange for a $50 K signing bonus and the thrill of riding around in unmarked vehicles terrorizing people who look like “them.”
The more of them there are, the less likely anyone will be charged.
This is so scary. Frustrated, angry men with guns and uniforms. So un-American.
Let's be honest it's actually completely American and everyone who isn't white or male has been saying so for centuries.
UGH!
I've cited this before. I'm a recently retired prof whose career stretched across almost 30 years.
What I saw was more women and more immigrants coming into the classroom and doing the work.
The number of white males dropped and those who were there tended not to do the work.
Whose fault is this?
The resentment seems to be misplaced.
The classroom is a real meritocracy.
But you've got to participate
If you don't, you've no one to blame but yourself.
42 years as a Computer Science prof here and you are exactly right. At the beginning of my career in the mid 70s, my classes were 95% white young men. By the end of my career, my classes were 65%+ female and minority.
The expansion of women and minorities in the work force increased the competition for good jobs. Mediocre males were passed over for very bright women and minority candidates, and that is still happening. So rather than work hard to increase skills, too many young men drop out and harbor great resentment against the other that has usurped their rightful place in the workforce.
One of the reasons for that is that the main employers in the computer field (especially the Silicon Valley crowd) quit hiring Computer Science graduates, insisting on degrees in Engineering instead. I hold an MS in Computer Science and was employed by companies that were heavily staffed with my ilk. When news of this came around in my East Coast world, many of us felt strongly that this was intended to reduce the number of women in the West Coast companies.
About 25 years ago, my alma mater folded the Computer Science department into the college of Engineering. It no longer offers a degree in CS.
AI is replacing a lot of these jobs now.
Wow, Jerry.
What's astonishing about your observation is that you're in one of those areas I'd assumed was still very much a white male redoubt.
However, I can tell you that in my last couple of years, I had transgender students telling me that they were moving into programming and other traditional STEM disciplines. So I at least suspected that things might be changing quickly.
Thank you for speaking out against DEI!! Awesome.
Exactly. I taught at a community college for 17 years. My students were mostly young women, with a few young men, and what you say was also my experience.
My parents taught me that I was in charge of my future, and that I had to earn it. I feel like this message isn’t getting through to young men as readily as it should.
I also think their resentment is misplaced. They should be mad at the billionaires who have rigged our system for their own gain, making it more and more impossible for working people to actually get ahead. I think it is much harder today than in the late 20th century to put oneself through college and graduate school. I could do it because there were grants and scholarships, and yes, a small interest loan. I don’t think students have the same options now. But it isn’t the fault of women.
Bang on. Every damn word.
What's insidious about the billionaire bros is that they know perfectly well that they're the ones responsible for male alienation by outsourcing their traditional jobs, but they use that resentment to their own ends, driving the chaos, deepening the divisions, in order to enrich themselves still further, and to entrench their power until (they think) it cannot be displaced.
100% agree with you! I started out and am still employed in public accounting. When I began my career there were zero women partners, and very few senior managers. The higher up men just assumed women would quit to marry and raise a family. It was fine for them to play golf on Friday with colleagues or a potential client without taking a vacation day, yet those if us who took a day off to take care for our sick child were charged for a vacation day. In my experience I saw the women work more efficiently and were assigned the less desirable clients. I strove and did not expect special treatment. Now I'm reaping the rewards of my sacrifice while many men are angry that they don't have more! Many have much more than me yet still feel victimized! They have to blame someone. I don't envy them for their greed. I think they should be blaming the private equity guys (and most of them are guys) who have bought companies just to destroy them by firing people and then sell the remains to another private equity company.
Thanks so much for this deeply personal and scathing account.
Yes, that’s so true! There is opportunity everywhere but people can’t see it if their eyes are closed and they’re waiting to be spoon fed.
Our society thinks education is something for the effete (ie effeminate). It is far better to be a top athlete than a top scientist because you will get far more money and attention/admiration if you use your body instead of your mind.
I am an older baby boomer who went to public schools. We admired fellow students who were talented in any area. There was no stigma for a guy to be a top student. In fact there was more pressure on girls to hide their smarts.
By "our society" you of course mean "white males".
Like you, I'm a Boomer and also a white male. Like you, I can remember when there was no stigma attached to being good at something other than sports. It's how I ended up a prof despite coming from a poor family.
The opportunities are always there, especially through education. Somehow, however, "male culture" has turned up its nose at those opportunities and then throws a tantrum at the alleged reverse racism and reverse sexism that's holding them back.
I'd also like to point out that often enough I speak to men my own age who want to assure me that there's no racism, only reverse racism; and no sexism, only reverse sexism.
This seems to be gospel belief among the MAGA cultists. And like all such beliefs, it doesn't make rational sense but is sustained by faith.
"When you're used to privilege, greater equality feels like persecution."
That's a great quote. Thanks for reminding me. I should have that tattooed on my inner forearm.
There are TWO processes going on:
1 a gradual but very real improvement for women and minorities re opportunity, driven by Progressives in the Democratic Party. (Thus a target for resentment.)
2 a bigger, faster but less visible worsening for the 90% reducing opportunity by siphoning $80 Trillion = all their increased productivity, to the 1%, driven by Republicans; for the last 40 years, Corporate Democrats have gone along, because 'all that lovely money from rich donors!'
https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-2.html
It's most visible for White Men without college, but it affects everyone who's not rich, pitting us against each other.
https://www.nationofchange.org/2025/03/05/since-1975-79-trillion-has-been-redistributed-from-the-bottom-90-to-the-top-1/
AND it's the CAUSE of the 'Opioid Epidemic' and the far less visible 'Alcohol and Suicide Epidemics'.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/06/opinion/working-class-death-rate.html free link tinyurl.com/NYT2020DeathsOfDespair
YES.
Actually I am a white female. Our class president was a black male who was a very good student and gave an impressive speech. Our class was overwhelmingly white so he won with a lot of votes from white kids — which no one found odd or remarkable. A girl in the class above me won a state award for physics which, given that our small Appalachian town’s school was far from elite, was surprising and a huge source of pride for all of us.
I of course never meant to suggest that the trends I see are ironclad laws without any exceptions.
But it is certainly in my experience that students of color (like your Black male class president) and woman finish at the top on merit.
It's gratifying to know that it's acknowledged in Appalachia too.
Ditto
I'll take a decent teacher over the greatest athlete 7 days a week. That's not to say I don't admire a truly gifted athlete, but a good teacher is far more important to me and to society.
Me too, unless that athlete is Roger Federer.
Nice schools, good students.
But there's another aspect of work that typically was done by men (for reasons known/unknown): the mechanical contrivances industry. Had nothing to do with physical strength. Was (still is, as far as that goes) all about outthinking the materials at hand and making a thing to measure, using the tools available. When done in a supportive atmosphere (bad bosses and/or bad employees can wreck any endeavor) the satisfactions can be pretty massive.
But we've gone from mechanical/repair to digital/throw away...
I think all you've done here is confirm that the problem is with attitude and outlook rather than circumstance and opportunity.
If men would rather be tinkers than thinkers, then they're the problem.
We need both tinkers and thinkers. The problem is respecting one over the other.
Agreed.
But we've moved from a tinker to a thinker society, and one demographic has very conspicuously not kept up.
And it also happens to be the one that -- for some reason -- feels the most entitled.
Just like the rest of magas they blame others for their own failings and inadequacies
There are TWO processes going on:
1 a gradual but very real improvement for women and minorities re opportunity, driven by Progressives in the Democratic Party. (Thus a target for resentment.)
2 a bigger, faster but less visible worsening for the 90% reducing opportunity by siphoning $80 Trillion = all their increased productivity, to the 1%, driven by Republicans; for the last 40 years, Corporate Democrats have gone along, because 'all that lovely money from rich donors!'
https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-2.html
It's most visible for White Men without college, but it affects everyone who's not rich, pitting us against each other.
https://www.nationofchange.org/2025/03/05/since-1975-79-trillion-has-been-redistributed-from-the-bottom-90-to-the-top-1/
AND it's the CAUSE of the 'Opioid Epidemic' and the far less visible 'Alcohol and Suicide Epidemics'.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/06/opinion/working-class-death-rate.html free link tinyurl.com/NYT2020DeathsOfDespair
Finally!
What do you think caused these young men to be this way?
For what it's worth, I think it's a combination of deeply-embedded (white) male entitlement, which is essentially racist and sexist, that is reinforced by the divide-and-rule dynamics of capitalism.
In order to maximize profits, capital requires a divisible-against-its-own-interests workforce that is primarily white male because if those white males feel entitled to their relatively low-paying jobs over women and people of color, then they've been tricked into thinking they've gained a real advantage that is theirs by right.
Now we're in a crazy situation where capital has systematically shipped those traditional (white) male "tinker" jobs overseas in pursuit of even greater profit, while women and people of color have happily obtained the education required for the "thinker" jobs...
The onset of (white) male resentment over the "loss" of "entitlement" does the rest.
Are you suggesting that this entitlement caused these young men to come to your classes believing that they'd get a free ride, to where they would eventually drop out?
If that was the widespread problem in classes, it sounds as if these young minds were not capable of the self reflection needed to overcome that entitlement bias to realize the trap they were in. It would truly be a sad statement towards the system that was in place if they could not have been reached in time to change a generation of men.
The received truth is that politics is downstream from culture.
The problem is systemic and deeply embedded in the culture.
Based only upon my experience, I should clarify that in my classes white males became an absolute and conspicuous minority. The majority, by the time I retired in the spring, was some combination of women and persons of color. Their enthusiasm was as obvious as the resentment among the white males, who could see for themselves that they were now in a competition and weren't necessarily going to go to the front of the line.
(In fact, statistically speaking, they still do go to the front of the line. But they didn't like even the appearance that for the first time they were a minority and in a competition not rigged in their favor.)
That is sad; it must have been especially difficult for those who were there to witness that slide in commitment from the early stages. Oh well, now we have no choice but to write them off as dunnage.
Speaking of climate change.... can you imagine how the serious climate scientist feels about our obligations to the future?
What I read is that climate scientists are seeking more and more psychotherapeutic care because of the knowledge they possess and the stresses they endure.
Even as a layman, I have a prescription for Ativan, "as needed".
Im pretty sure this started at home and wasn't squashed in school.
Thanks Kimberly for acknowledging my serious question.
In general I find it easy to see failing all around us. I must remind myself that not one group, and certainly not one individual can be called out as the deciding piece in this puzzle of a country. That extends to the President. We have been challenged, and we must wrest our country back. Perhaps not completely from the Billionaire class, but to a time before 45.
Blanket statements are for putting a discussion to bed. I will do that now by saying there's good in everyone; and yes there's also bad in everyone.
I think part of it is that life was a lot easier for an average white dude when I was born. A much smaller pool of competitors and much more chance of finding a woman willing to settle, both for support and because marriage was a requirement for adulting.
And, right on schedule, here comes the "men are the real victims" narrative.
Which studies?
Do you have links?
The "coding" of jobs is absolutely an issue, and truly drives me nuts. And definitely part of it is pay: employers see women as less empowered to fight for good pay as teachers and health care providers especially.
My mom lives in an assisted living facility where most of the caregivers are women but several of the best are men, including one who was a long-haul truck driver for years before back issues made it impossible for him to sit that long. He's one of my mom's favorite people there, and I'd love to see an effort to enlist guys like that bring more men to the field(s).
Stronger unions can also help in this area, especially if they reach out to men with a pitch to help "strengthen" the field. Of course, Republicans bash unions while Democrats have long supported them, but an active approach from them still might help.
Yes when my dad was in a care home the male carers were very good with him. Especially as most residents were women he needed some male company.
my mom still enjoys the company of men, of whom there aren't many there. Yes, I mean that in a platonic way - she grew up with 3 brothers and was married for 58 years, so she's not used to only being around women.
Thanks Mara. I think that your comment is spot-on the mark. I particularly like your last paragraph’s comment about the benefits of stronger unions, the reduction of unions’ roles has played a very big role in impoverishment (men and women equally), and in that alienation which Paul Krugman’s post today talks about. We (people like you and I) are not asking for the sun, the moon and the stars. This sort of stuff is do-able, and it’s not ‘radical-left’/‘communism’/ the end-of-civilisation. I would laugh at Donald Trump’s ridiculous language, if only people didn’t fall for it!
Agree re unions but by 2000 they became bloated and useless. Union leaders in particular really ruined it with all their excessive perks.
That rubbed me the wrong way too.
meaning the comment about increasing pay for the HEAL jobs so men would consider taking them.
Agreed, it’s a sad fact that key social roles are not rewarded appropriately.
Very illuminating
Biden’s 2024 loss? That’s funny, I was sure someone else was on the ballot. I guess being a woman made her easy to forget.
Hearted, and OOF.
Yes, that grabbed my attention too. An otherwise insightful article.
Exactly!
Let’s talk about female rage while we’re at it.
I think women have far more (and more legitimate) reasons for anger than white males.
It's not even close.
Frankly, female rage is the rage I'm most interested in engaging because -- unlike some other "rages" I could name -- it is fully justified.
I think the media still runs on the "why are these women's libbers so angry?" head-scratching playbook of the 1970s.
God, it breaks my heart to know that the "discourse" on women's rights and equality has essentially been spinning its wheels in the broader culture for the last half-century.
During the pandemic, I made a point of going back to read the "radical feminists" of the 70s, including Andrea Dworkin.
Do you know who could have predicted that fifty years down the line a twice-adjudicated rapist would be the twice-elected president of the United States?
Andrea Dworkin.
we dismissed her as a crazy man-hater. But her Cassandra cred will continue to grow throughout this century, I'm afraid.
Her "Day Without Rape" essay is intensely horrifying.
And yes, it's frustrating we haven't gone further in all this time.
Women are as much responsible for our lack of cultural progress as men. I know it is most likely because of socialization and it is difficult to put such a thorough brainwashing behind you. I have not totally accomplished this myself. But it is disheartening when women try to teach other women about concept like Dworkin’s and Catherine MacKinnon’s and get shouted down as man-haters.
You have issues, clearly...
Is there an Ignore button on this thing?
This article made me a little mad. Like WE have to fix the problem FOR MEN? White men who are in charge? White men who get away with everything? Who fall upward? Sorry, I’m not very sympathetic at the moment.
Thank you. I see it the same way. How much help do men need anyway? Women are loosing their rights, may die in childbirth with no help, don't even have the rights to their own bodies in many places, don't get paid as much, and somehow men need help?
I'm a white male boomer.
I'm here to confirm that nothing you say is an exaggeration.
My cohort is almost exclusively made up of over-privileged, under-qualified man-babies.
The women in my life -- starting with my mother and grandmother -- have always shown me what real intelligence, strength and courage look like.
What you're describing now has a name, "mankeeping", and, as I understand it, a significant percentage of Gen Z women are simply opting out.
Who can blame them? If anything, it's long overdue.
Thank you for this. "Mankeeping" hadn't heard of that but opted out of it a while back. My husband is hanging in there.
I know Krugman meticulously researchs the topic he writes about but i am not buying this one. In IT we have a shrtage of American qualified personnel. Much of today's jobs are going to better educated Indian people. And yes most are male. This white American male grievance is profoundly irritating. If you want the job get yourself qualified for something...anything. Pull you head out and get an education. Women fought for the right to an education and are succeeding more and more in the job force though still underpaid in most. Men HAVE, in my opinion, and have had all this time more rights than women but they squander the opportunities laid out before them.
The education isn't enough. Many of these people don't want to leave the place where they were born and raised, even when there are no jobs there. I have no idea how to fix that.
Sometimes you have to square your shoulders and do what you have to do. The alternative is to be a jobless parasite.
Remote work.
Agree. Expecting a good life with a high school diploma like most of these maga fools is a pipe dream.
Uhm.... except now expecting a good life with a college diploma and $100K of debt like some kind of liberal idiot is also a pipe dream.
Blaming “stupid liberals”, the very (educated) people who want universal college/vocational school and healthcare for ALL by taxing the rich their fair share? Smart. $100k of debt is a choice; with community college or vocational school, in-state tuition, grants and scholarships, maybe a part-time job (which I did all through college) one could do much, much better.
I was basically agreeing with you by taking it one step further. No one can get ahead in this day and age regardless of education level was my point. The college education is no longer worth it.
My daughter’s in state public university tuition and fees last year was $30K. Times that by 4 years. That’s $120K. What’s the interest on that loan gonna be? What about graduate school?
I got a free ride to my state school in the 80’s that tuition bill was about $20k for all four years. I worked two jobs to support myself.
I’m school debt free because I got lucky and was living in a different time but if I had to do it all over again today and take out loans, I wouldn’t. The debt is not worth it.
I advocated for my own daughter to stay home and go to community college or trade school because I don’t want her to be saddled with crippling school debt.
You’re right it’s her choice but I don’t think it’s responsible for parents to advocate for the four year route anymore unless they are wealthy enough to pay the tuition bill themselves thus my comment about “idiot liberals.”
College isn’t going to save our kids.
Nothing short of a revolution will.
Also if more public high schools incorporated the trade school track like they do in Scandinavia it would not be so “MAGA foolish” to expect to be able to get a good job right out of high school. Our local high school has a pre apprenticeship program kids can take their senior year. The trade schools came and recruited those kids as if they were star athletes eligible for a free ride to a big 10 school. They were offering paid trade schools apprenticeship programs starting at $30/hour with bonuses for completion. For 18 year olds.
It makes universities with their crazy tuition look like a joke, imo.
When I went to college a middle class family could afford to cover tuition and living expenses. Because of the huge budget cuts for public colleges and universities, that is no longer the case. There has been a systematic attack on education since the time of the Powell Memo. The original focus was cutting funding for state colleges and universities and establishing private schools for the upper middle class and above, allowing for public funds to flow to private k-12 schools.
There is a reason Putin’s Apprentice expressed his love for the uneducated.
Unfortunately a large number of young men have been convinced studying and doing well in school is feminine. They realize too late they were grievously wrong, but are not man enough to admit it.
I’m sorry I failed to appreciate the sarcasm :)
When these problems afflict the Black community, many White men say it's their own fault. Well, what's happened to these White men is their own fault, and they threw in their lot with the Republicans since Ronald Reagan. And now Dems are being told we have to clean up the mess left by Republicans YET AGAIN! Republicans refuse to fund the things that give people the "boot straps" to pull themselves up with, and they still are! Cutting health care. Attacking unions. Funneling money to the rich. Making it harder to qualify for food stamps to feed their kids and obtain jobless benefits. The biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action? White women! The wives of these men, except now these women don't want some of them. Do you blame them?
So sure, Dems can do what they always do and offer to help and Republicans will twist our words and intentions and it's an open question as to whether these men will go with us or stay in the fascist camp where their "manliness" is celebrated. Germany 1933.
Thomas: So well said!
Republicans exploit these guys without helping them. I think that's one of Paul's main points. The current administration might be the most egregious ever. But they might be making things bad enough for them that the true-believer core will dwindle.
Why focus on manufacturing jobs as manly jobs? The construction trades are manly jobs but seem to have less appeal to men in these times. There are also jobs in HVAC maintenance, appliance repair, and auto mechanics. Most of these jobs pay a good salary/livable wage.
There is a real need to expand apprentice programs. In the past, employers had apprenticeship programs but not so much anymore. Bring them back and teach more trades at community colleges.
I was a construction worker for over five years. I worked outside when it was five degrees above zero and when it was 109 degrees above zero. One guy on the Hartsfield job collapsed from heat stroke. Another was killed when a concrete truck backed over him. I had a two-ton beam slip from a crane load and hit the ground a few feet in front of me (my laborer's warning kept me from being under it). That was just one of many jobs on which I worked. There are many reasons why these jobs don't appeal to men (and even more reasons why they don't appeal to women).
I forgot Margo. She fell from a wall about 14'. Onto dirt, fortunately. She broke an ankle and was out of work for quite a while. The union insurance kept her alive, and she came back when she could.
Lots of men were happy to send their kids off to college and get them out of the factory/construction site ("I want my kid to come back and be a Walt Whitman quoting snob who'd never do what I do" in the words of one father).
Agreed
Learning how to use 3D printers to quickly and affordably construct housing for people is a thing right now. Win win.
One difficulty with recruiting men to HEAL or other non-"elbow grease" jobs is that they implicitly require a commitment to education, critical thinking, etc. at an early age. And the best paid jobs in professions including IT are intensely education-oriented. What prescription exists for getting boys to want to think and learn?
Mother's encouragement + Father's encouragement = Son's achievement
I would add society's encouragement. I think it plays almost as large a part.
I might add school discipline. Truancy, talking in class and other behaviors were swiftly dealt with back in my day.
You forgot the bankroll as well... Daughter who had to attend community college first and pay her own way.
Chess club. Math club. Science club. Band. Orchestra. Robotics club. Build model rockets.
My four-year-old grandson visited the "big school" and saw kids working on robots. He wants in on that action!
Hook them early, get community volunteers (where are the retired men to help out here?), mentor, mentor, mentor. Boys (and girls) love the hands on stuff. It builds confidence, and the soft skills (teamwork, communication) that seem to be lacking in young men.
All the wonderful opportunities for growth that you mention in your first paragraph are being chipped away by DOGE as we speak.
In 1973, I became the first female dishwasher at Unit II, although I had to go to the counseling center to get what was then called a boy’s job. “Miss Myrtle Johnson again!” they groaned, and I was resentfully hired. Before moving on to a desk job at the Bancroft Library, I spent two years working in the dining commons. The boys’ shifts were much longer, and paid thirty cents an hour more than dishing up veg and checking meal cards.
I also managed restocking the dining hall, and heavy jobs like deftly lifting six-gallon milk cubes shoulder-high to slide them into the dispenser. My boyfriend, a junior, didn’t need to work. He was hired with a smile, signed up for the longest shifts, and I’d sub-in at the last minute. Devious and effective.
Once my boss settled in, I had nothing to complain about, but thank you, Dr. Krugman, for insight on why some men do. Whining is not as horrifying as seeing Berkeley give up 160 names to the regime, but all genders and races experience wear and tear when especially white MAGA men from Donald Trump to an Instagram rando whine non-stop.
I feel so let down by Berkeley!!!!
Decepcionadas somos, in Spanish.
I (a female) worked as a telephone operator at Unit II (Davidson Hall!) at about the same time. I later worked at the Berkeley City Club (not affiliated with UC) as a breakfast server. The evening server positions were reserved for men, who got the big tips. At breakfast, the customers would press quarters into my hand because I reminded them of their granddaughters.
I’ve been telling your story about the UC Club quarter breakfast tips, Lori. I was in Griffiths and Ehrman.
I think there may have been more to Charlie Kirk's appeal to young men than just economic pain felt by those young men.
A friend of mine's son is a sophomore in high school in Masschusetts. (Massachusetts is hardly a hive of conservative thought.) He told his father, who told me, that a lot of the boys in his class were really strongly affected by Kirk's death and that they had been followers of his.
None of these boys are old enough to be directly affected by the anything about the job market for young men, at least not yet. Still, they followed the man.
Why?
This sort of thing isn't really new. Almost a century ago, Father Coughlin had an immense following on the popular media outlet of the day - radio.
Why?
MA is full of red areas, "old school" conservative thought, and republicans. Several republicans have been governor of the state.
Kirk was highly skilled propagandist selling racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and grievance. The boys, likley grew up in authoritarian homes, churches, and schools and need to be told how to be in the world. So they were familiar and took kindly to the sound of the flute Kirk was piping on and the boys bought the product. Using the word "followers" is exactly right. They need to question and think for themselves.
Just as a data point…. The town where this high school is located voted three to one in favor of Harris in 2024.
I think even liberal men are lost. Truthfully women compete as equals or greater than them in all communities at school and in the workforce and I would argue even more so in affluent areas. Just showing up to school and being a man doesn’t work anymore for being desirable and deserving. Being desirable to women and in life, takes a lot more than it used to take, because women can do what men can do now. To be deserving of a place in college or a high paying job takes perseverance and application of your talents. Women are equal or often outperforming them in school and we are taking professional jobs at higher rates. This hurts all men (if they perceived they were in these areas of work with ease before) and threatens their sense of being just inherently wanted and desired. To me this is the emotional appeal across political party to Charlie Kirk and all those that preach a return to conservative norms. Women are used to the fight for relevance, but men are not. So, the solution is a realization that hard work, an education, and being a good human will get you places regardless of gender is a needed recalibration. We need good jobs for everyone and if typical “men’s jobs” have disappeared at a higher rate, then there is work to be done to create more opportunity and more net jobs. What’s missing from the analysis is the true decline in all available jobs. For example we have less manufacturing, but we have more Uber drivers and delivery services than ever before. Has the tech industry replaced some or a good percentage of manufacturing jobs that men are “coded” for? Whatever the total loss is of jobs we need to create the total number of lost jobs or fill jobs that remain empty due to gender coding (which might be medical and education jobs which then makes sense that they create more net jobs for men bc just switching men into female coded jobs, doesn’t change the net loss but rather just redistributes them) and attract men to these jobs and make sure they feel wanted and well trained for them. Men and women need to have equal opportunities, but men I’m afraid are having a harder time with equality in the workforce, because it truly does make them innately less valuable for just being. That’s a hard thing to get used to— your prominence was not deserved and now you have to work for it. That’s a downer and these traditional norms being espoused put it all back together for men to return to a position of innate power.
You have not included the additive impact of online gaming on boys and young men. Many are as addicted to gaming as others are to drugs. In games one can always hope to be the hero.
Why? He had a huge social media presence & posted rage bait “gotcha” owning the libs moments to his platform constantly. Doesn’t matter that he made up statistics & was an abysmal debater (see his Oxford debate, he didn’t know enough about actual debate tactics to realize how badly out of his depth he was). To a young, undeveloped mind, seeing these clips on tik tok reeled them in.
Being macho is important to many of them and the understanding of what that means is antiquated.
Turning Point et al. are not concerned with solutions at all. They are only concerned with monetizing the rage. In fact, that applies to the right and the left, and I'm going broke listening to the solutions to the world's problems. The poor, who really need to read/hear these things, of course can't. Commentators, podcasters, have to start bundling their products, much like cable tv did. But I'm getting weary of the monetization.
My husband is a union electrician, a well paying and extremely manly job. He's outside in all kinds of weather doing physically demanding work to get big construction projects up. Right now the AI boom is bringing work to the union hall but when that bubble inevitably bursts where will the infrastructure investments come from? Definitely not from foreign governments, no matter what Trump's trade deals say. South Korea at this moment is looking for a way out of their 350 billion investment pledge after their factory workers were lead out in chains like 18th century slaves. The investment has to come from the government. Biden realized this and had passed a huge green energy infrastructure bill. I don't think us Americans fully realize what we had, what we were going to have, that Trump has taken away.
Many people in my husband's union voted for Trump, but now all those loudmouthed MAGA voters are quiet. Not admitting they were wrong ... Just quiet. Union leadership should be checking in with their rank and file to see if it's time to formally endorse politicians who'll actually work in their interests.
Your point about the demise of the green new deal is so important. An essay about that would worth a hundred about the male rage and despair problem, imo.
Are you listening PK? How about an essay on what the green new deal would have done for America? You’re an economist after all.
Thanks Subdee. This comment is helpful, and I think your last suggestion would be correct too.
How interesting that you imply that it’s okay for HEAL occupations to be underpaid, as long as they are “women’s jobs”, but when men start to do them, we need to make up the wage gap.
He didn't. Paul has previously called for a higher minimum wage.
He did not imply that. He observed the current fact of underpayment.
Just because you inferred it doesn't mean he implied it. I think he was simply pointing out that it would attract more men into those jobs. You could just as easily infer he meant that it's *not* OK that they pay less now. That's how I took it.
Jill, I don't think he meant exactly that.
Yes, I agree that that was the implication, but I don't think that was his intent. Let's just face it, these jobs are underpaid and need to be better paid to attract all manner of talented people, whether they are white men or not.
And by itself, better paid HEAL occupations will not solve the problem of disaffected white men. They need healthier examples of people like them who may have originally felt disaffected and then decided to get off their butts to do the work necessary to get a decent job without falling into the MAGAverse. A charismatic Charlie Kirk type talker who extolls the virtue of working towards a goal and achieving it within the opportunities that exist in this country. Someone who is able to counterbalance and adequately discredit the Fox News type propaganda that can be so appealing.
And, yes Paul, Biden did not lose the 2024 campaign. Harris did. Did you forget?
Harris may have been on the ballot, but Biden lost that election with his stubbornness and arrogance.
True, Biden's behavior was a net negative, but let's acknowledge that Harris was the candidate because we shouldn't erase women, or anyone for that matter, from history
My 28 year old nephew just graduated in nursing. So some progress. It was a lot of hard work for him to get his degree. Young men will have ( a lot have) to realise its not going to be easy but it can be
worth it.
The problem begins in the home, where these males are reared to resent female authority and expertise and to bully their female siblings and classmates. It's very hard for people in the "training grounds" such as schools and colleges to reverse ingrained patterns. Apprenticeships may work better because these males respond to males in authority.
I spent my career as a university professor. I taught thousands of students throughout my 39 years in the profession. Granted, I was in the humanities, but I taught courses required for graduation of engineers, College of Ed students, nursing students, and liberal-arts students. The most resistant to literacy were young men. I directed quite a few dissertations, and among them there was a single one written by a cis male, who has remained in touch with me through the years and is a professor in his own right. A number of male students resented, vociferously, a woman in authority. They resisted learning. There were enough male professors from whom these males could take courses, but scheduling issues meant that many found their way in my classes. I won't go into how some maligned me in anonymous evaluations and online because I managed to weather these attacks as well as the misogyny in my profession, where to this day the greater percentage of full professors remains male.
Evidence for this? Cite it, please.